


Soldier's Heart

by Alex51324



Series: Halo Effect [2]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Edwardian Gays, Great War, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Thomas/Happiness, World War One
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:06:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 35
Words: 445,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21947791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alex51324/pseuds/Alex51324
Summary: Following the events of "Halo Effect," Thomas Barrow goes to war.
Relationships: Thomas Barrow/Original Male Character(s)
Series: Halo Effect [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1435963
Comments: 3406
Kudos: 1369





	1. Chapter One: October-December, 1914

**Author's Note:**

> Title note: In veterans of 19th-century wars, the condition that in later conflicts would be known as shell shock, battle fatigue, and post-traumatic stress disorder frequently manifested n the form of cardiac symptoms with no identifiable physical cause. This condition was called "soldier's heart."
> 
> Series note: As a reminder, this AU diverged from canon with Thomas rescuing Lady Mary from the nocturnal visit of the Turkish Gentleman. Among other developments, this change led to a rupture with Miss O'Brien and a blossoming friendship with Anna. The latter also led to a double-date between Thomas and his childhood sweetheart, Peter Fitzroy. "Halo Effect" ends with Peter going off to war. 
> 
> This epic-length sequel is completely written, but there is some editing left to do. Expect several chapters a week until complete. 
> 
> Content Notes: Homophobia, war-related violence, medical gore, grief, suicidality--it's World War One; things get dark. Detailed content notes will be available by chapter. 
> 
> Chapter one: References to early-20th-century medical practice and early 20th-century gender roles. Basically fluff.
> 
> As always, tremendous thanks to Beboots for beta and cheerleading!

_5 October, 1914_

_Dear Thomas,_

_Writing this from a hut in France! Our Sgts. were not pulling legs about taking the tents, or about packing them the day before, but we loaded ourselves onto the train along with them, and then slept our last night in England in the baggage sheds by the dock. Not especially comfortable, but at least there was a roof!_

_Very long day today, as we got up at dawn to load everything onto the ship. (We are responsible for bringing a great deal of medical supplies and equipment, as well as our own kit.) Then we had a bit of a rest as we sailed across (The boat had a motor, not sails, but “motored across” does not sound right), and unloaded it all again at the other end. The baggage got to ride in wagons from the dock, but we had to march, and halfway there it started to rain._

_We were all fairly sure we were going to have to set up our tent in the rain, on the wet ground, before we’d be allowed to sleep, but they let us have the hut instead, just this once—a sort of barn about the size of our tent. It is destined to be a ward, but is not quite ready for patients yet, lacking amenities such as a heating stove, electric lighting, glass in the windows, and furniture of any kind. We are all agreed that it’s surprisingly sensible of the Army to let us have the use of this luxurious accommodation, instead of leaving it sit empty while we faff about in the rain putting up a tent right next to it. (I grumble, but we are fairly cozy in here, with our candles and bedrolls. I suppose we’ll get tired of things soon enough, but, as when we were “on maneuvers” in England, there is a sort of holiday spirit about it just now.)_

_Many of us were a little nervous to be coming here, to the country where the war is taking place, but everything in our town is very normal and peace-like—apart from the absence of men of military age. Marching here, we saw autumn flowers in window-boxes, nannies and mothers pushing prams (before the rain started), shop owners pulling in goods off the sidewalk (after the rain started) and all the sorts of homely things you’d expect to see in a seaside town._

_Our hospital is set up in and around a casino—I won’t tell you which one, as it would only make more work for the officer who’s got to censor our letters, but I’ve been here before, when I first started working for Sir H. I might have told you about being annoyed that he put more than I make in a year on one spin of the roulette wheel—and then had the nerve to whinge to me about losing it? If I did, it’s that same place._

_All of the roulette wheels and similar have been cleared out of the casino now, carpets taken up, chandeliers replaced with more prosaic lighting fixtures. There are some patients in there already, although not nearly as many as they expect to be able to accommodate once we’re fully set up. Once the huts are finished, the less-serious cases will be in those, and the more-serious in the main building. (They say also that we are to have a hut of our own eventually, but the ones for the patients come first. With luck, we will be out of the tent before winter sets in completely.)_

_Settling down to sleep now, so I will close and put out my candle before anyone heaves a boot at me. Light a cigarette for me._

_Affectionately yours,_

_P.F._

“Is that a new letter from Peter, then?” Anna asked. 

Folding it, Thomas put the letter back in its envelope. “No, just the old one.” They were waiting for their tea, and he felt like reading it again, was all. 

“I’m sure he’s all right,” she said.

“So’m I,” he said, quickly. It had barely been a week, since he’d gotten this letter—and it had taken four days to reach him. “I expect they’re keeping him quite busy, and everything takes longer, coming from the Continent. Censoring and everything.”

“Do they do that, when they’re just at a hospital?” Maud asked.

Thomas nodded. “I expect they’re in a position to know more sensitive information than anyone, being in contact with wounded from all different units.”

Two days later, he got two letters at once from Peter, the one dated the 8th—meaning it had taken over a week to reach him—and the other a more reasonable three days old. The first was a long, chatty one where he spoke cheerfully of the work they were doing—mostly getting the “huts” into shape, painting the walls and setting up beds and so on—more description of the town, and things like that. 

The second was much shorter, and said,

_Dear Thomas,_

_Just a quick note to say I am thinking of you! I have had (3) from you, the most recent of the 14 th, but it sounds like you have only had my first. (I sent another!) They say that our letters have been delayed for a while, as we have a shortage of junior officers to censor them: normally it’s the Lieutenants who do it, you see, and a doctor is always at least a Captain, so we haven’t got many Lt’s in the RAMC. _

_Fortunately, some of the recovering officers in the wards have asked for something useful to do, and someone had the idea of getting them to censor letters—which is very useful, in my opinion, while not being at all taxing. So for now, our post should go out fairly quickly. But please don’t worry if letters are irregular—post might slow down again if we happen not to have any officers conveniently on hand to check them, and besides that, we don’t have Sundays off here. (For some reason, the wounded insist on eating, needing their dressings changed, etc. even on a Sunday!)_

_They are keeping us fairly busy, with the same sort of stuff I talked about in my last letter. There is a general sense of urgency about getting wards ready for a rush of new patients, so of course we are speculating about a major battle being in the works—but it may simply be a case of being prepared well in advance of need._

_Light a cigarette for me,_

_Yours affectionately,_

_P.F._

By the time Thomas got this letter, the papers had confirmed Peter’s guess about a battle in the works—several of them, in fact, as the British and French tried to stop the Germans from getting to the North Sea, and vice versa. He was unsurprised when Peter’s next few letters were brief and hastily written, speaking of many casualties and much work, and missing Thomas. He did say that he appreciated long, newsy letters, though—it taking much less time to read one than to write one—so Thomas did his best, filling his letters with Downton gossip and tosh he read in the papers and whatever else he could think of. 

It wasn’t until well into November that he got a long letter in return. It said:

_Dear Thomas,_

_Whew! The fighting seems to have died down to a dull roar now, and with it the flood of casualties. The experienced corpsmen tell us that it will probably be like this for the winter. (I hope that isn’t considered sensitive information—I don’t think anyone heard it from anywhere in particular; it just stands to reason that the Army won’t be moving around quite as much, with the ground freezing and thawing all the time, and soon snow, and so forth.)_

_Of course, that doesn’t mean our brave lads on the front lines will be able to pop back into the house for a cup of cocoa in the warm—they have to stay where they are, so as to keep the Germans where they are. And that, in turn, means that we brave lads of the hospital must stay where we are. We typically get a few wounded every day, from one place or another, as well as a steady trickle of “sick.” (That isn’t as revolting as it sounds—“sick” may mean anything other than a wound, from a cough to a sprained ankle, and does not necessarily mean actual vomiting.) Last evening we had a lecture on frostbite, which I suppose they anticipate we’ll be seeing a lot of._

_That brings me to something important that I didn’t have time to write when we were so busy—I’m getting a lot more medical training now. A couple of weeks after we arrived, they sorted us into new sections—the old ones having been simply based on the alphabet. The new ones are to do with the type of work they think we’re suited for, and I’m in the group that is mostly working on the wards. (Others do things like cooking, laundry, managing supplies, looking after the Medical Officers, and so on.)_

_The others in our battalion have described our section as “the clever sods.” We include quite a few grammar-school lads, brainworkers of various types, two who were actually in university studying medicine when the war broke out, and four more who were about to start. One of the medical students was actually two years into his studies, and was offered an officer’s commission in a non-medical unit, but turned it down when he found out he’d have had to buy his own uniforms as an officer. He is the son of a coal miner, you see, and attended grammar school and university on scholarship. I’m rather in awe of him, as several of us are. (He might he be a candidate for the Peculiars, but it’s a little hard to say, as we have our minds on other things.) _

_I suspect I made my way into the clever sods because they had a few places left over after choosing the really clever ones, and I have a decent accent when I make an effort, but I think I’m doing well enough. Quite a bit of it is making the beds, dealing with bedpans, and similarly unglamorous chores, but we also change dressings, give medicines, etc., and assist the doctors with various treatments. We new fellows mostly do the less glamorous side, and learn the more complicated things by watching the more experienced orderlies. Every once in a while, we take a turn doing something while they watch and shout at us if we get it wrong. And we get a lecture now and then, when the MO’s don’t have anything better to do with their evening. _

_Now that we aren’t so screamingly busy, the doctors also try to teach us a bit as they go along, whenever they see something the rest of us ought to know. For instance, when I was on the chest ward, one of the MO’s pulled us all over to have a look at a poor blighter who had a bit of shrapnel go through his lung in just the right way that air would leak out of his lung and be trapped inside the chest wall. Once enough of it builds up, the lung can’t expand anymore, and the aforesaid poor blighter can’t breathe—unless a doctor takes a big syringe and jabs it in just the right spot to suck the excess air out. (He really needs an operation, of course, but the trick with the syringe takes only a moment and will keep him alive long enough to operate.)_

_The poor blighter’s struggles for breath, in this situation, make quite a distinctive sound, and it was precisely this that the MO wanted us all to hear—so that if we hear it again, we know to run and get a doctor right away, rather than think that it is a death rattle and nothing can be done. (We are not to attempt this maneuver ourselves, he emphasized, as it is very tricky to get the needle in just the right place not to do more harm than good, but after he’d gone one of the sgt’s said it might be different if we were on the front lines and not in a hospital.)_

_I tell you this both because it is an interesting thing to have learned, and because it impressed upon me that I could be in a position to make the difference between somebody making it through, and otherwise. I mean, everything that we do makes a difference in that sense—even changing a bed reduces the chance of infection, which kills more men than the wounds themselves do—but that I might do something that any reasonably intelligent and conscientious chap dragged in off the street wouldn’t know to do. If you follow me. (I am not trying to aggrandize myself, only saying that I’ve realized it’s important to do my best to learn what they’re trying to teach me.)_

_But it is not all bed-making and learning about new and gruesome types of wounds here! We get an afternoon or evening out now and then, and the local people are entirely happy to help us part with our wages. They have set up for our convenience any number of little cafes where you can get a glass of wine and something like an omelet or a bowl of soup for not much money at all. There are, of course, cafes and restaurants that existed before the war, but any number of new ones have sprung up, many in the homes of women who have found that they have a lot of time on their hands, with their menfolk off at war, and perhaps a need for a bit of extra money, if their men’s soldier’s pay is not quite what they got in their civilian occupations. (It is said that some of these establishments offer hospitality warmer than wine and soup, but I, of course, have not ventured into that kind.)_

_My chums and I particularly frequent the home of a Madame F., who is a widow with three grown sons at the fighting. (I stress again that this is an establishment of the most respectable type; I run with a very respectable set here in France.) My chums include Jer, whom you met with his wife and son; Billy D., who is Methodist; Frank R., who is the miner’s son and medical student I spoke of earlier; and Issac S., whose father is a priest of the Hebrew faith—they call it a “canter,” which I thought was something to do with horses, but there you go. There are a few others, but we five are the core group, and Madame F. has decided to consider us her foster sons for the duration—in hopes that her own sons are being similarly looked after, wherever they are. (I can hear you scoffing all the way across the Channel, but I think it’s rather sweet.) She is a splendid woman and a good cook, and lights candles for us every Sunday at Mass—even Issac, who had to think for a minute before deciding to accept the gesture in the spirit in which it was intended._

_It’s very important for us to have a comfortable place where we can relax off-duty, because we are still living in the bloody tent! It’s very chilly; we sleep in our greatcoats and have nicked extra blankets from the hospital._

_You asked about Christmas, and if you meant it literally—I think that you did—what I should like best of all things is a set of the warmest winter underwear you can find—top and bottom. What they issue us is not very warm, but we are allowed to wear anything under our uniforms as long as it doesn’t show. (Now that I have said that, I can’t help but wonder what Syl is wearing under his! If he has been issued one yet, I mean; last I heard, he and Theo were still in Kitchener Blues.)_

_I would also like a wind-proof lighter, if you can find one and the underwear is not too dear. ( Not the one I gave you! I would rather struggle with matches, and be able to think of you having it.) While we’re on the subject, what can I send you from France?_

_For ordinary parcels, and for “filling in the corners,” the most important thing (besides cigarettes) is tea. We get some as part of our ration, but it’s usually made for us in these big metal urns called “dixies,” and by the time we get it, it’s lukewarm at best and tastes of metal. (I also do not think the dixies are ever washed.) The tea itself is not dreadful, if you can get it issued to you “dry,” but once it’s been made, forget it! We have clubbed together to buy a spirit stove to make our own, but decent tea is not abundant in the shops, as the French like coffee better._

_Biscuits as before are also handy—if we don’t get a chance to sit down for our tea, it’s nice to have something we can scoff down one handed! Go for quantity, not quality, in purchasing, as the done thing here is to put your tin the orderly room when it comes, and then you are free to eat everyone else’s until your next one comes. (We are quite Communist in this regard: one is allowed to partake if one is a friendless orphan and never gets biscuits from anybody, but if it becomes known that someone has kept a tin to himself, he is barred from the common supply until he makes amends. One chap tried asking his people to send two tins at once, one to share and one to eat all by his greedy self; we met in solemn conclave and decided that this was not cricket—from each according to his ability, as the man says. The only exception is biscuits handmade by one’s sweetheart, and in that case you still have to give up half.)_

_So that is our life here! All is well, except for missing you. As always, light a cigarette for me._

_Affectionately yours,_

_P.F._

Receiving this letter, Thomas briefly contemplated the likely reaction if he went into the kitchen and asked Daisy or Mrs. Patmore to show him how to make biscuits. Perhaps if the war stretched on a _very_ long time, he decided, and went down to the village to see what he could find in the way of biscuits and underwear. 

He wrote back,

_Dear Peter,_

_I did mean Christmas literally! I suppose it’s a bit early to be thinking about it, but the adverts are full of admonitions to think of “Our lads in France” early, and the Post Office has even made an official announcement to that effect. I am putting together a parcel with tea, biscuits, cigarettes, etc., and will send it as soon as I have the corners filled in. Your Christmas one will be the one after that, I think._

_I’m sure they were right to put you in the clever sods section. (For more reasons than one!) I understand completely what you said about it being important to learn what you’re learning._

In fact, he felt a pang of loss, that Peter’s experiences were growing so far from his, but he couldn’t say that. He considered a quip about Peter being too grand for him when he got back, but since Peter had taken such care to say he wasn’t aggrandizing himself, best not to say that, either. He settled on:

_It is very important work that you’re doing, and for the record, I’m proud that you’re doing it—although I wish you didn’t have to!_

_I’m glad to hear about your work, your chums, Madame F., etc.—anything that helps me to imagine your days. I am not jealous about F.R., even if he is a candidate for the Peculiars, as long as you don’t decide you like him more than me. I suppose he must be awfully clever, whereas I have only a certain low cunning._

_Here, everything continues mostly as before. Quite a few of the gardeners, grooms, etc. have gone—as have some of the horses—but as for indoor staff, none of us have signed up, although William still wants to. By now, most of us do know someone or another who is, at least, in training or waiting for orders to report. Mrs. P. has a nephew, Miss O’B. a brother, and so on. (There are only two with sweethearts in the Army so far—one is Madge, the one walking out with the under-gardener, and you know who the other is.)_

In fact, Thomas had found himself feeling very sympathetic to Madge, lately. She didn’t talk much about Davy—he didn’t seem to be much of a letter-writer—but Thomas supposed she had to be feeling much as he had, when Peter had first gone off to training. It was queer to think of, sharing something like that with a “normal” person, and a girl to boot. 

_Upstairs, Mr. Matthew is at Officer School—although he manages to turn up here what seems like every other week-end; I suppose they have an easier time getting leave than regular people._

It was also unclear why he kept turning up _here_ , specifically, when he and Lady Mary still weren’t speaking, but there it was. Thomas considered saying something about that, but decided not to. Everyone downstairs was consumed with the drama of it all—would they make up, before he went off to war? Would he propose again?—and he was getting sick of it. 

_Lord G. is still trying to get joined up. His old regiment won’t take him back—apparently he’s just a hair overage—but he is constantly talking about this or that person at the War Office who has an idea or two about where he might be useful._

_He talks about it at dinner, I mean, not to me, obviously. Lady G. gets very quiet at those times, and I wish I could tell her that I understand just how she feels—although there are two very good reasons why I can’t, one of them being that she is a Countess and I am a footman, and it would be the height of impertinence. Even though we seem to be the only two people in the house who really see what a colossal ass he’s being—the young ladies don’t want him to go away, but they don’t think he can really die, and Carson thinks it’s beneath Lord G’s dignity, but ditto._

It was, honestly, maddening, the way they all seemed not to notice that the men signing up in droves were marching cheerfully to their own destruction. Bates had told him that men traditionally put a brave face on things, in their letters home to women, but even so, they could all see the casualty reports in the papers—and her ladyship, who _did_ seem to understand, was a woman. He shook off that thought, and wrote:

_Not that I would be particularly devastated if Lord G. were killed, you understand, although I certainly wouldn’t wish it on him. I just know that he could be, if he gets his way, and that the ladies would be devastated. I hope that one day Lady G. will finally let loose and tell him he ought to realize when he’s well off—and not only because it will be quite a show. _

_I don’t know why I am writing so much about Lord and Lady G., except that I have nothing much of my own to write about. Today I polished the second-best silver!_

_In other gossip, Mrs. B. is making trouble for Mr. B. and A. Apparently she wants Mr. B. back—why, I couldn’t tell you—and is threatening to tell someone something if she doesn’t get her way. He will not say what, and A. is wondering if he has yet another dark secret. (I just realized what it could be, though—she could tell someone here that Mr. B. and A. are having an affair! They are not—at least, I’m fairly sure they aren’t—but they spend enough time together that it would be a plausible accusation, and a big enough scandal to get at least one of them—probably her—sacked. I’ll have to find an opportunity to suggest this to A. I’m not sure what we can do about it, if I’m right, but maybe she’ll be able to think of something.)_

_I’m not really sure what you can send me from France, apart from letters, which are the most important thing. A tie? Or just something from the town where you are—I suppose before the war holiday-makers bought trinkets to send to their people back home; if those shops are still open, choose something there, and when I feel like it, I’ll imagine that you are swanning your way through the casino in white tie, dropping a year’s wages on a spin of the roulette wheel._

The letter was still a good deal shorter than the one Peter had sent—even with all the drivel about his lordship—but he couldn’t think of another thing to say. Finally, he wrote,

_It’s late, and I suppose I have to sleep sometime. Goodnight, my dear, and I’ll light a cigarette for you._

_Yours Affectionately,_

_T.B._

#

Anna was working at some mending at the servants’ hall table when Thomas dropped into the seat next to her and said, “I had an idea, while I was writing to Peter last night.”

“What’s that?” she asked, cautiously. She hoped it wasn’t about enlisting and getting sent over there to be with him—the chances they’d actually be in the same place were slim. 

“I bet that Bates’s wife is planning to tell them upstairs you’re having an affair,” he informed her. 

She put down the mending. “Why are you writing to Peter about Mrs. Bates?” she asked, because that was a simpler question than asking how he’d gotten an idea like that. She knew Thomas well enough now to understand that he probably didn’t mean that he thought she _was_ having an affair with Mr. Bates, only that it might for some reason be in Mrs. Bates’s interest to say that she was.

“Because nothing ever happens here,” Thomas said, in a tone of irritation, “and he likes long letters. But that’s got to be it—think about it. He said he’d rather live under a bridge than with her, so it can’t be a secret that only hurts him. And it explains why he won’t tell you what the threat is—he probably thinks it’s indecent to say anything about an affair to you.”

Anna decided not to point out that _most_ men would consider anything about an affair to be, at the very least, a subject to approach delicately, rather than just coming out with it all of the sudden. “It does make sense,” she agreed. “But why would any of them believe her? It isn’t as if she can have any proof—because we aren’t.”

“But you do find a lot of excuses to be alone together,” Thomas pointed out.

She’d think they must have been indiscreet, if even Thomas had noticed—there was a lot that went over his head, particularly when it came to women—but the possibility of an affair was precisely the sort of thing his twisty little mind _would_ pick up on. “How would she know that?”

Thomas didn’t answer aloud, but looked down the table toward the spot where Miss O’Brien usually sat—although, fortunately, she wasn’t there now. Though if she had been, Thomas would probably have dragged her outside “for a smoke” or something, because listening ears was another kind of thing he paid attention to. 

“I see,” she said. She didn’t bother asking about motive; Miss O’Brien didn’t need one. 

“If I had to guess,” Thomas went on, “she probably reached out to her after that business with the letter, trying to see if there was anything else she could use.”

She very well might have—both Thomas and Mr. Bates had been surprised she let the matter drop, after the letter proved a damp squib. “If it is true, do you have any ideas what to do about it?” She was fairly sure that if he did, they wouldn’t be _good_ ideas, but hearing what he thought might help her think of something better.

He shook his head. “I was hoping you would.”

“Well, the first thing to do is find out from Mr. Bates, if you’re right about what she’s threatening,” Anna decided. She didn’t think it was _likely_ that Thomas had come up with this idea in order to maneuver her and Mr. Bates into doing something against Miss O’Brien—but she wouldn’t put it past him, if he’d thought of it. 

“I suppose,” he agreed. “D’you want me to ask him?”

“No,” she said quickly. If Thomas broached the subject as bluntly to Mr. Bates as he had to her, Mr. Bates _would_ think he was accusing them of an affair. “I’ll speak to him. Even if you’re wrong, he might open up to me about what the real secret is. Especially if it’s not as bad as what we’ve guessed.”

“All right,” he agreed. 

She changed the subject—he’d speculate all day about what Mrs. Bates and Miss O’Brien might be up to, if she let him. “How is Mr. Fitzroy?”

Thomas grinned. “He’s well. Did you know, they’ve selected him for extra medical training….”

#

Thomas was enjoying his after-dinner smoke, and wishing he’d put on his overcoat before doing it, when a sliver of light came out the back door, followed by Mr. Bates. This wasn’t as startling an occurrence as it would have been a few months ago, but Thomas was still a bit wary—they mostly kept Anna between them, as a sort of buffer. 

“You were right,” Bates said, taking up a patch of wall next to the one Thomas was leaning against. 

“Figured,” he said. 

“And I know exactly how you thought of it, too.”

“How’s that?”

“Because it’s what you’d do, if you were still trying to get rid of me.”

Thomas shrugged. It probably was. 

“Only an accusation like that is going to hurt Anna a lot more than it does me. Vera knows that. That’s why it’s so effective. If it was just me, I’d tell her to go ahead and peddle whatever story she likes.”

He’d figured that, too. “Did you really go around telling people you’d rather live under a bridge than with her?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Bates. “And it’s true.” He sighed. “Is there anything in particular that makes you think O’Brien’s been telling her things?”

Thomas shook his head. “Just that someone has to have been, and it’s the sort of thing she does. They might have hit it off and hatched the scheme together—one wants you back, the other wants you gone—or maybe they took a dislike to each other, and O’Brien told her she’d been replaced, hoping it would sting.” 

Bates snorted. “You know what we used to say in the Army, about men like you?”

“What?” Thomas asked, suspiciously. 

“It’s better to have you inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.” 

Oh. Thomas had thought he’d meant something else, by “like you.” 

Considering it from all angles, Thomas said, “Coming from you, that almost sounds like a compliment.”

“It almost is.” Bates shook his head. “There are times you need a real bastard.”

Thomas huffed, thinking of what he’d written to Peter about the clever sods section. “In more ways than one.”

Luckily, Bates didn’t ask. “What I don’t understand,” he went on, “is what Miss O’Brien gets out of it. I know it started with you wanting my job, but she can’t care about _that_ anymore.”

Thomas shrugged. “Something to do,” he suggested. He wouldn’t say it to Bates, but he was sort of glad of the distraction, too—something to think about, that wasn’t the war or them upstairs. “And she doesn’t like that you have his lordship’s ear. That was always her and her ladyship, you know. She decides what they hear, about what goes on down here.”

Bates nodded slowly. “I see. And is there any way to make peace with her?”

“If there was, I’d have already done it.” 

#

“What if you just explain to his lordship?” Anna asked. She and Mr. Bates were working in the boot room—one of the places they could usually talk privately, as long as they kept their voices low. 

This time, they had to keep them lower than usual, as they had left the door wide open. They never completely closed it, as a closed door invited questions about what might be happening behind it, but often closed it halfway. 

“I can’t,” Mr. Bates said, shaking his head. “I can’t just _tell_ him that my wife thinks I’m having an affair with you, but I’m not.”

“You managed telling him you weren’t having one with Thomas,” she pointed out 

“That’s different. The entire idea of something like that, with me and him, is absurd. His lordship knows perfectly well I wouldn’t want to.”

He didn’t have to say that he might _want_ to, with her, although he’d never do it. 

“Nor would Thomas,” she said instead. “Apparently he’s mystified by the fact that you have, I quote, ‘two entirely separate women competing for you, and at least one of them’s got nothing wrong with her.’ I’m assuming that last bit was meant to be a compliment.”

“I can’t imagine how he’s gotten even _one_ person to fall in love with him,” Mr. Bates answered. “Do you suppose he says things like that to him? ‘Well, all right, if you insist, I suppose you aren’t completely hideous and I can tolerate your company’?”

“From what I saw at Kew, that’s about the size of it,” Anna said. “But Mr. Fitzroy seems to understand. I suppose it’s safer for them, if anyone overhears. If it sounds like they’re just teasing each other.”

“I expect you’re right,” said Mr. Bates. He returned to the subject at hand. “In any case, it won’t be his lordship that she writes to—she knows I’d have a chance of explaining to him that there’s nothing in it. She’ll tell Mr. Carson, or Mrs. Hughes, or maybe even her ladyship. She’s worked in houses like this—not quite so grand—and she knows that, with any of them, there will be a lot of talking about it behind closed doors, before it comes out in the open and I have a chance to clear myself. If there’s enough talk, even if they believe me when I tell them the truth, there’s a good chance they’ll decide at least one of us has to go, to avoid the appearance of impropriety.”

And if it was only one of them, it would be her, she knew. Partly because Mr. Bates and his lordship shared a bond forged in their own war, partly because it would—truly—be easier for her to find another place as a housemaid than for Mr. Bates to find one as a valet, and partly because she was a woman, an object of temptation, and it was always the woman who took the blame. “What can we do?”

He shook his head. “I’ll go down to London, try to reason with her. Bribe her. I’ll tell her, even if she does get me sacked, I’ll not be going back to her, and then offer her some money to back off. If I can get it across to her that she won’t get what she wants, whatever she does, she might have the sense to take what she can get.”

It seemed a good plan. “Do you have enough money to give her, that she’ll find it convincing?” Anna knew that Mr. Bates sent most of his wages back to her, so he couldn’t have much put by. 

She had a bit put by herself, but she didn’t imagine he’d take it.

“I’ll have to get it from my mother,” he answered. “It’s humiliating, but Vera will enjoy that, so it might help persuade her.”

#

Across the table from Thomas, Madge squinted at the knitting pattern that was spread out in front of her, sighed dramatically, and began undoing stitches. She’d proudly announced, a day or two before, that she was knitting a jumper for Davy. It wasn’t hard to see where she’d got the idea—Maud, a few seats down, was knitting one for her brother, as well. Maud’s looked a lot less like a moth-eaten fishnet, though. 

Maud looked up from her knitting. “That pattern might be a bit ambitious for a beginner,” she suggested. “You could try a scarf.”

“I know how to knit,” Madge said, irritatedly. 

“Only you usually do dish-cloths, don’t you? I’m just saying.”

Thomas sighed, and lit a cigarette. 

“I’m sorry, are we bothering you?” Maud asked, waspishly. “We’re only knitting for our men at the front, so I certainly hope it isn’t any inconvenience.” She seemed to have entirely forgotten that a moment ago, she’d been suggesting that what Madge was doing could scarcely be dignified with the name of knitting.

“D’you think you’ll be finished with it, before the war’s over?” Thomas wondered. 

“We’ll be finished sooner than you’re finished doing nothing,” Madge answered. 

“There are these things called ‘shops,’” he said loftily, “where you can _buy_ things to put in parcels.” He’d just sent one, with the tea and things, and on his next half-day was going to Ripon to look for Peter’s Christmas presents. Peter didn’t need him faffing about knitting things.

“No one said there weren’t,” Maud retorted.

Thomas sloped off into the courtyard, where a man could smoke in peace. Bitterly cold peace, but still. You didn’t have people _knitting_ at you.

#

“Anna,” Thomas said to her one day, as she was doing some sewing in the servants’ hall. “Come outside with me.”

Honestly, he was lucky so many people _did_ know about him, or they’d get entirely the wrong idea. Still, she was glad enough to put her work down for a moment, and follow him out. The ladies had decided not to order new dresses, because of the war, which meant their old ones had to be shortened to match the new style, and have new trims and things added, to make it less dreary not to have anything new. She was half-tempted to take up smoking herself, for the excuse to take a break now and then. 

Once they were outside, he seemed in no particular hurry to say whatever was so important and private it couldn’t be said inside, occupying himself instead with knocking a light dusting of snow off of a crate and then, to her astonishment, gesturing for her to sit down on it. “Is everything all right?” she asked, sitting down. 

“Hm? Oh, yeah. He’s fine.” Thomas lit a cigarette. “Sends his regards.” 

She hadn’t exactly been asking about Peter, but answered, “Send him my love, back.”

“Very busy, you know, hospital things. They’re still sleeping in the tent. So what I was wondering was, is it really fairly easy to knit a scarf?”

It took her a moment to adjust to the change in subject. “A plain one is about the easiest knitting you can do. Why, did you want me to make one for Peter?” She supposed she could—with all the others knitting things for soldiers, she might as well get in on it—although she might not have the time for it before Christmas, with all the sewing she had to do.

Thomas flicked ash in a surprised manner. “Yeah, I suppose that’d work.”

“Why, what did you have in mind?”

“Well.” He shifted he weight from foot to foot. “I suppose I was sort of wondering if you could…teachmehowtoknit.” 

Oh. Well, that was rather sweet, really. “Of course. Have you bought the wool yet?”

“While I was in Ripon. I didn’t get any needles, though.”

“We’ve plenty lying around,” she told him. “I’ll find some. Do you want to start this evening, after dinner?”

“Could we?”

“It’s a date. You bring the wool, I’ll bring the needles.”

He nodded. “Right, so I was thinking you’d say you aren’t feeling well, and then ten minutes or so later I’ll go out like I’m having a smoke, and we meet up in me room.”

That’s what he was thinking, was it? “No,” she said. “I am not sneaking into a man’s bedroom for secret knitting lessons. Have you lost your mind?”

“Your bedroom?” he suggested.

“That’s even worse!”

“Well I don’t imagine we can do it out here,” he said. “It’s too bloody cold.”

“Yes, it’s too bad there isn’t some sort of room where men and women can engage in perfectly innocent activities in plain view of everyone,” she said. 

“I can’t _knit_ in the _servants’ hall_ ,” he protested. “Have _you_ lost _your_ mind?”

“Everyone else does.”

“Everyone else are _girls_.” He paused. “And Miss O’Brien.”

“Scottish shepherds knit,” she told him. “Even the ones that aren’t girls.”

“I’m not a Scottish shepherd.” Tossing his cigarette down into the snow, he said, “Forget it; it was a stupid idea anyway,” and stalked off.

#

After dinner the next evening, Thomas was studiously ignoring Anna, and the knitters, who she seemed to have joined, doing something mysterious with needles and khaki-colored wool. Was she _gloating_? That she could knit in public, and he couldn’t?

She was mean enough to do it; if she weren’t, he’d not have liked her.

Not that he did, at the moment. 

Bates went to put the newspaper back in the rack by the fire, passing behind Anna on his way back. “That looks complicated,” he said, peering over her shoulder at what she was doing.

“Not really,” she said. “Once you’ve got the knack of it, your fingers just go along and do it. What Madge is doing, that’s tricky, because you have to count the stitches, but this is just plain knitting, one row after the other.”

“I see,” Bates said. “So you wrap it around like that, and then—how does it not slip off the end?”

“It just doesn’t,” Anna answered. “Here, have a go.” She handed him the needles.

Was it supposed to be some sort of joke? He’d asked to learn to knit, and now she was showing _Bates_ instead, of all people.

Soon, Bates was knitting away, with frequent reminders from Anna about keeping tension and not dropping any stitches.

“Well, there’s a sight,” said O’Brien, busy at her own knitting. “Not really something for a man to do, is it?”

“Some of the others did it in hospital, when I had my wound,” Bates said. “I can see why—it’s sort of soothing, isn’t it? I might take it up.”

For a long moment, there was no sound but needles clacking. “Would anyone else like to have a go?” Anna asked, with barely a fraction of a glance at Thomas. “Or is Mr. Bates the only one man enough?”

 _Oh, clever girl_ , Thomas thought, finally catching on—though how she’d roped Bates into it, he had no idea. “If _he_ can do it, I’m sure I can.”

#

A few days later, when Mrs. Hughes was sharing an evening sherry with Mr. Carson, he said peevishly, “Why, I should like to know, is the servants’ hall suddenly full of _knitting men_?”

“They’re making things for the war effort,” Mrs. Hughes explained. Even the hall-boys had taken it up, once William had. “I think it’s nice.”

#

_25 December, 1914_

_Dear Thomas,_

_Happy Christmas! The scarf was a lovely surprise, and I hope you thanked Anna for teaching you. I’m sure it must be heaps better than anything William has managed to knit. The underwear is just what I wanted, and I shall think of you every time I light a cigarette (although I did before, too!). Do thank Mrs. P. for the fruitcake for me, and tell her it did stay moist the whole way here._

_Our Christmas here was rather good. Everyone feels sorry for the wounded soldiers and Christmas-time, and there was enough good cheer left over for us orderlies to get our share. Lots of women’s groups back home sent loads of things—food and drink, decorations, presents—and parties of local women and children came to cheer us all up. We orderlies were up half the night fixing up stockings for all the patients, using the things the women sent from home, and once we got done with the morning chores, we found out that the Officers’ Convalescent ward had done the same for us._

_We had our parcels from Princess Mary, as well—I suppose you’ve seen in the papers about them. I imagine you rolling your eyes over the appeals, which are a bit mawkish, but many of the men were genuinely touched. Even the hardened anti-sentimentalists (that is, the ones who remind me most of you!) said the tin would come in handy, for keeping things dry and safe once they go back to the Front._

_We had a bang-up dinner as well, and so it was all just about as jolly as could be managed under the circumstances. I am writing this long letter now because I am on night duty in Men’s Sick. (I remind you again that this is not what it sounds like!) Most of the cases are foot conditions caused by the cold and damp, which are fairly disgusting to look at and require a lot of work during the day, but not likely to cause an emergency at night, so it is a fairly lucky ward to have night duty on._

_I’m sharing the night watch with a Nurse N. We are not talking much, because the nurses are under orders not to fraternize with the orderlies. We and they do very much the same work, but they are classed as honorary officers, because most of them are rather posh in terms of background._

_It’s funny, though—she’s sat here in the middle of the night, in a room full of men, most of them in states of undress, and that’s all perfectly all right, but if I ask her what she did before the war, or if she’s got a brother in the fighting, that would be improper! _

_Oof, just as I was writing that, she asked me for a cigarette. How forward! Gave her one, of course, and having one myself now. All of the nurses are learning to smoke and swear, over here, and they’re right hard workers. Whenever there’s a particularly hard or mucky job to be done, the Sgt’s yell at us to get on with it before the ladies do it. (Whenever this happens, I can hear you saying, “Let them, if they’re so keen!”)_

_The standard for a mucky job is pretty high here, though—the ladies handle bedpans and urinals and basins of sick (as opposed to Sick) as often as anyone else. It’s mostly the absolute worst of the dressing changes that they try to spare them from—that, and carrying in stretcher cases. And anything to do with VD. They’ll do it all, though, if we don’t get to it first._

_Another thing that’s funny is that Christmas is making me miss you more than ever—not that missing you is funny, but we haven’t spent Christmas together since Lady W’s anyway. I suppose it’s just that everyone else is missing their people at home, and it’s contagious. I’m glad I have someone to miss; I can’t imagine how lonely I’d feel if I didn’t._

_I sometimes think of what it would be like to have you here with me. ( Don’t think I am telling you to run and sign up—there’s no reason to believe they’d send you to the same place I am, and no way we could ask for it. They might send you someplace not nearly as nice as here, and I’d much rather have you safe and bored at home.) It’s just something I imagine, is all. I picture it being like the Lady W’s days, showing you the ropes. _

_Sometimes I get carried away and imagine us all here, the London Peculiars. Syl giving fashion tips to all the nurses, and Theo keeping track of who hasn’t had a parcel in a while, Reg telling those awful jokes of his, and you getting all the Daves mixed up. It’s not bad here, really; you just miss people._

_You, most of all. Light a cigarette for me (even though I’ve just had one)._

_Yours affectionately,_

_P.F._


	2. DVD Extra: Deleted Scene:  February, 1915

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas has an awkward conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy this short, non-plot bearing scene--the next real chapter is when the War gets real for Thomas.

_22 February, 1915_

_Dear Thomas,_

_Just got your parcel, “Hero’s Box” and all. Everyone here agrees the name is silly, but they’re lovely biscuits, and a good value. (I scoffed two of the chocolate ones the moment I put the tin in the orderlies’ room—they go quickly!)_

_This will have to be short, as things are busy here. We are getting ready for the “spring offensives”—all details hush-hush, but there are bound to be some. Our lads are itching to get out of the trenches and do some real fighting—that is the official word, but it seems to actually be true. Everyone who spent the winter huddled in a hole scratched into the ground is just about ready to get out of it, and I suppose that goes for the Hun, too._

_One of the things that’s going on is that they’re setting up new medical facilities, closer to the front lines. (We have had these all along, but the point is, we’ll need more of them, because with active fighting going on, there will be lots of wounded all at the same time and place.) Some of us will be going forward, to staff the new posts—they haven’t said who yet._

_I am telling you so that it won’t come as a shock if I tell you later on that I’m going up. Please don’t worry—the next step in the “chain of evacuation” is the Casualty Clearing Station, which is simply a hospital set up at a railhead a good distance back from the fighting. Many of them are in towns where the local civilians are still living quite normally. The pace of the work can be a bit difficult, they say, but it’s not really more dangerous than here._

_So I am sure that I shall be fine, if I even am sent up, which is by no means certain. They are even assigning a few nurses to work at CCS’s, so that should tell you it’s really nothing to worry about._

_I had meant to finish this letter with some everyday details, so I wouldn’t be leaving you with this surprising news, but I have to close now, if I am going to get this in today’s post. Light a cigarette for me!_

_Yours affectionately,_

_P.F._

Thomas was just tucking this letter back into its envelope—after reading it for the third time—when the back door creaked open, and Madge stepped out, very casually taking out a cigarette packet. 

Thomas raised an eyebrow. He wondered if Mrs. Hughes knew what she was up to. 

“Hullo, Thomas,” she said, lighting up as if she’d been born doing it—and then immediately falling into a fit of coughing, which rather spoiled the effect.

“Don’t, uh, don’t suck on it quite so hard,” he suggested, once she had subsided. “It’s not a straw. Just inhale normally.”

She tried again, a bit more successfully, though Thomas would not have sworn she’d actually inhaled at all, this time. “You know that Davy leaves the day after tomorrow,” she said. 

“Yeah.” Likely, he was bound for the same “spring offensives” that Peter had written about. “Sounds like they’re expecting things to start happening again, now that winter’s nearly finished.”

“You see, the thing is.” She fell silent for a moment, twisting her engagement ring round her finger. “The thing is, I was hoping you could help me.”

“How’s that?” Thomas asked, not wanting to commit himself before he knew what she wanted.

“I want to do something for him, something really special, before he goes.”

Thomas made a sound of vague encouragement. What did that have to do with him?

She took a deep breath—not from the cigarette, which she seemed to have largely forgotten about—and said, “He wants—that is, he doesn’t want to go without having felt the touch of a woman’s hand.”

Oh, Christ. Thomas had supposed she’d been talking about making him a bloody _cake,_ or something. That explained her taking up smoking all of the sudden—it was a good excuse to slip away for a few minutes. “What is it you want me to do? Stand guard?” He supposed he could. “It’d have to be a place I have some business being, and if you’re caught anyway, I was just having a smoke and assumed it was a couple of cats.”

“No, he…he’s already figured out how we can get some privacy. Some of his mates are helping.” She took another deep breath. “It’s just that…I can’t get in a family way. I mean, we’re going to be married, but if he were,” she dropped her voice, already low, to a whisper, “ _killed_ , and couldn’t….”

Thomas nodded quickly. She was right not to risk it, but he still didn’t know where he came in to all this. If it was French Letters she wanted, she’d be better off asking literally _anyone else_ , since he had no use on Earth for the things. 

Common sense reasserted itself. “You want me to send him away with a flea in his ear, then?” That had to be it, or some version of it. Let him down easy, maybe. Or stand there and look intimidating while she did. 

But she said, “No, it’s….” She blushed furiously. “I was hoping you’d have some idea. Of something that we could…. _do_. Instead, like.”

Christ swinging naked on a trapeze. There _had_ to be something he was misunderstanding, here. She could not possibly be asking for tips on the finer points of buggery. 

But what the hell she actually wanted, he couldn’t imagine. “Have you tried asking one of the women?” he suggested. 

“Anna just said I should keep me knickers on and me knees together.”

 _That_ was a much more sensible idea. “She’s right. Do that. It’s just as good—or nearly.”

“I thought _you_ would under—” she began, angrily, then stopped short. “What?” She shook her head. “What are you talking about?”

“The same thing you were, I thought.” Was it possible that their lot really didn’t know about…? It would explain why there were so many out-of-wedlock babies. 

“I don’t think so,” she said. 

Thomas had imagined, a time or two, explaining this particular maneuver to a hall-boy or something, as Peter had explained it to him. But certainly not to a bloody housemaid. “All right, look. While you’ve got your knickers on and your knees together, he can sort of go….” Thomas made a vaguely illustrative gesture with both hands.

“You mean with his….” She trailed off, apparently unable to name the object in question.

“If ‘special’ means what I think it does, his … is going to be involved.”

“And that’ll work? I mean, men like it?”

“So I have been given to understand,” Thomas said, archly.

“But what if he, you know, while he’s down there.” She made a slightly less vague gesture with her hands. “On the sly, like.”

“If you don’t trust him not to do what you’ve said you won’t, you shouldn’t do anything at all.”

She considered that for a moment. “I was hoping not to have to actually _say_ …but I’m sure if I do, he’ll understand.”

Thomas hoped she was right, but it was her own look-out if she wasn’t. “For God’s sake, don’t tell anyone where you got the idea.”

“I won’t,” she promised. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thomas is doing his best here, but unlike Madge, you have better choices of where to get sexual health information than an Edwardian gay man. Try Scarleteen or Planned Parenthood. 
> 
> To the best of the author's knowelse, Intercrural sex/frottage/dry-humping/"outercourse" through underwear is a low-risk sexual activity, especially compared to unprotected intercourse, but because underwear is porous and spermatozoa are very small, there is some possibility of STD transmission and/or unintended pregnancy (if the couple involved are capable of conceiving together).


	3. Chapter Two: April-May, 1915

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The war comes home for Thomas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Note: As you read this chapter, bear in mind that Thomas/Happiness is my OTP. This fic is the slowest of slow burns in terms of that pairing, but the next installment will begin to give an idea of how it's going to work out. 
> 
> Historical note: The story of the hospital ship Albion is based on that of the hospital ship Anglia. See end notes for further (spoilery) details.

“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” said Maud, bravely. “All the doctors and medics know their job—like Thomas’s friend.” 

She looked at him hopefully, and Thomas found himself saying, “They do. They’ll take good care of him,” even though his mind was full of things Peter had told him. That infection killed more men than the wounds themselves. That once the gas gangrene started, there was nothing to do but amputate—and once it reached the trunk, nothing to do at all. That sometimes, there were just too many wounded to look after them all. 

Then there was the fact that Maud’s mother had had an official telegram, saying that Henry was wounded. They didn’t send those out for a scratch; if the man was well enough to sign his name, he sent a field postcard. 

Across the table, he and O’Brien exchanged a look, almost like the old days. He wondered if her brother told her things most men didn’t tell their womenfolk. 

Mrs. Hughes, giving Maud a last, motherly pat on the shoulder, changed the subject. “And how is Mr. Fitzroy faring?”

“They have him at an Advance Dressing Station, now,” Thomas said.

“Is that where they do the more complicated treatments?” another maid asked.

Thomas shook his head. “That’s a Stationary Hospital. ‘Advanced’ means towards the Front.”

“Oh,” said the maid.

They’d moved Peter up quickly, once he’d left the base hospital: a couple of weeks at the CCS, a couple at the Main Dressing Station, and now this. Each one was a bit closer to the fighting, a bit more dangerous, and a lot less comfortable. “They’re in the same part of the lines as the gun batteries—the artillery, you know—so it’s very loud.”

Not just loud, either. Anna asked, “Do our guns shoot further than the German ones?”

“No,” said Bates. “They don’t.”

“They don’t get shelled very often,” Thomas said quickly. Peter had said so. “Our guns are mostly positioned to be in range of their front lines, and the other way round. But sometimes.” 

“Do they still have to go up to the Front and collect the wounded?” Madge asked. “Like they did at his last place?”

Thomas nodded. “They’ve always got to do that.” 

Bates said, “We used to have men seconded from the regiment to act as stretcher-bearers.”

“They still do that,” Thomas told him. “But the ones from the dressing stations have to go too, if there’s more than a few wounded at one time.”

Bates shook his head and sighed. “It was something of a light duty, in our war. They’d put you on it if you were getting over being sick, or something.”

Not long ago, Thomas would have thought Bates was calling him a liar. “Peter says, they put you on extra collecting parties—that’s what it’s called—if you’re in trouble. Otherwise, there’s a rota. But if you’re being punished, you’ve got to go every time.”

It was inhuman, he thought, punishing somebody by putting them in risk of death. But Peter never got in trouble, so it was good for him. He didn’t have to go as often.

_14 April, 1915_

_Dear Thomas,_

_I’ve not been very brave today. I told you before, about the sound of the guns, and how it makes the war seem so close—even though they’re our guns, and no danger to us here. They creep into my dreams, and seem louder every day._

_I woke up and got up for a smoke, and found our MO, Capt. R., doing the same. He’s the nice one I told you about. So I asked him, if there was any way I could be rotated back for a bit—just to get away from the guns, I said, it wasn’t about not wanting my share of the dangerous work._

_He was very nice about it, and said he understood, but there simply wasn’t a mechanism for it—we’re already nearly as far back as the men go when they’re rotated off the Front for a rest, so the Army doesn’t see any need to rotate us out. It was a shame, he said, because it would do all of us a lot of good to get away for a bit. Some of the MOs, he said, think maybe the roar of the guns does something to your inner ear, makes you a bit potty, if you’re susceptible, but you’re bound to adjust eventually._

_He was trying not to make me feel like a coward for asking, but I still do._

_(Also, we had a lecture on war neuroses, a while ago. The first-line treatment is for one’s officer to kindly but firmly tell one to buck up. I’m fairly certain I have just received this treatment.)_

_Light a cigarette for me, your neurotic friend,_

_P.F._

Thomas struggled with how to reply to this letter. His first impulse was to tell Peter he was an idiot for drawing attention to himself, when he was having trouble—he might have been able to wangle something, somehow, but now if he tried, they’d know what he was doing. 

But he couldn’t say that to Peter—not if he was still feeling low when he got the letter—and in any case, it was too late now. He didn’t even really _want_ to say it, not to Peter, who was so brave and clever and kind.

That left him with no clear idea of what to say instead, though. Anna told him that the best thing to say was that Peter was very brave, and he was sure that the officer hadn’t thought otherwise, but they weren’t in the habit of telling each other comforting lies. 

In the end, he wrote,

_Dear Peter,_

_I’m not surprised you’re having trouble—it all sounds wretched. Remember that you are very brave to have gone there in the first place, and I expect it’s true that lots of men are having a hard time, otherwise Capt. R. would not have had a lecture ready about it! If he has any sense, he will tell his superiors what he thinks, about it being a good idea to rotate the orderlies off from time to time—who knows, something may come of it! After all, you are at the Front. (The back of the Front, but still.) _

_I worry about you being there, of course. At church last Sunday, we had a prayer for “our boys fighting at the Front,” and I wanted to point out to Father-what’s-his-name that there are people at the Front doing things other than fighting, and they’re having as bad a time of it as anyone else. (I did not give in to this impulse, just talked Bates and Anna’s ears off about it.)_

_Everything here continues as normal. Bates’s mother is ill, which is no surprise given she’s about nine hundred years old. I have been good, and told him it’s no trouble doing his work while he goes down to London to see her, but so far he hasn’t gone._

_Lighting lots and lots of cigarettes for you,_

_T.B._

The next morning’s post brought nothing from Peter, but it did bring something: an envelope of smooth, heavy paper—expensive paper—addressed in a hand that used to send a thrill through him, whenever he saw it. He didn’t even have to open it to know what sort of news it would be—there was only one reason the owner of that hand, and that paper, would be writing to him now. The only question was who it was about.

Numbly, he slit the envelope, took out the letter, and read:

_Thomas,_

_I hope this letter finds you well. I’m sure you must be surprised to hear from me after all this time. I’m writing because I came across a piece of news that might interest you, and of which you may not have heard._

_I’m sorry to have to tell you that Eliot Cavendish was killed in action in France the week before last. I don’t know any further details than that; I had it from his people. I got the impression that you and he were rather chummy at one time, so I thought that you might like to know._

_Sodding hell._ Eliot, of all people….

“Thomas!”

He glanced up to see Carson glaring at him, his expression thunderous. “What?”

“How dare you use language like that in mixed company!”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Carson,” he heard himself saying. “I didn’t realize I was speaking aloud. Excuse me….”

He got up and headed for the courtyard, vaguely aware of a commotion behind him.

Eliot. He was a prick, of course, all of them were, but he’d been the first man in Thomas’s life to say that he’d loved him. They hadn’t spoken in years. And now he was dead. 

#

“I’ll go and speak to him,” Anna said, quickly. It wouldn’t do at all for Mr. Carson to go after him; heaven knew what Thomas would say. 

“He must have gotten some distressing news,” Mr. Bates explained to the rest, as Anna left the room.

She wasn’t at all surprised to find Thomas in the courtyard, smoking. She _was_ a little surprised that he was crying, too. “What happened?” she asked. It couldn’t be Mr. Fitzroy—he’d not have managed to leave the room as calmly as he had if it was—but what else could upset him enough to swear at breakfast?

Thomas swiped angrily at his eyes. “Nothing. Just some—complete prat I used to know.” 

But he handed her the letter he’d been reading, and she was surprised to recognize the crest at the top. And the handwriting. Lady Mary used to get letters on this paper, in that handwriting. Why on _Earth_ was Thomas getting letters from the Duke of Crowborough? 

The sender was a surprise, but the contents were what she had guessed they must be—someone had died. Someone who, somehow, Thomas and the Duke both knew. 

Belatedly, she remembered what Lisel and Mr. Fitzroy had hinted at when they’d talked in Kew Gardens that spring—about Thomas having a bit of a past, involving gentlemen who hadn’t treated him very well. “I’m sorry,” she said, hesitantly. 

He shook his head. “I don’t care about him. It’s just that I get one of those about every week, these days. ‘I don’t know if you’ve heard, but…’ and then they tell me who’s been killed this time. Not any of my real mates yet, just….people I’ve lost touch with, like Eliot, or friends of friends.”

“But it makes you worry about Mr. Fitzroy,” Anna said, gently. Of course it did.

But he looked up at her and said crossly, “It’s not like he’s the only friend I’ve got. There’s a bunch of them over there now. Joey, Syl and Theo, Reg.”

He had never mentioned any of these people before, as far as she could remember, and part of her wanted to point out that he couldn’t really expect the rest of them to know what friends he’d got if he kept it all such a big secret. 

But he was going on, “Michael’s not there yet, but he’s going, and so’s Drew—don’t really know Drew, he’s new, but he seems a nice lad, shame to think of him dead. The other Peter’s _already_ dead, and so is one of the Daves—I’m not sure which one—and Tim. You know about Eddie, he was killed back in the beginning. Haven’t heard from Joey in over a month—got worried enough I asked around, nobody else has, either. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s dead, too. And George Hargraves, Charles, and now Eliot. God only knows how many I haven’t heard about. The toffs, they’re dying in droves—our lot have at least got the sense to _try_ and keep their heads down.” 

How did he _know_ all these people? She knew he got a lot of letters, but he always seemed so aloof, so isolated. “It must be very worrying,” she said, tentatively.

“I should probably go,” he said, and for a moment she thought he meant back inside—which would have been wise, it was a damp, chilly morning, and he hadn’t stopped to put on a coat. “There’s not much point in me being the only one left, is there? Me and Philip—he’s got a heart condition, supposedly.” He brandished the letter. 

There had been something at the end about being medically disqualified—Anna hadn’t read it closely enough to notice any details. “You mean go to the war?”

“No, to the bloody circus,” he scoffed. 

He’d been going on for months about what an idiot William was for wanting to enlist. “Don’t do anything hasty,” she warned him. “You’re upset now, but I don’t think they let you back out once you’ve signed up.”

“I’m sure they don’t.” He sighed, seeming to deflate. “I’m not going to do anything _hasty_. It’s just…it’s a lot.”

“I’m sure it is.” The young ladies were feeling the strain of it to, with all the young men they knew going to war, and the first news of deaths starting to come in. They got _I don’t know if you’ve heard, but…_ letters, too. 

But at least it wasn’t all their friends going—just their beaux, their friends’ brothers, their friends’ beaux. Thomas’s social circle—this wide-ranging, class-spanning social circle that he had scarcely said a word about before now—seemed to be made up entirely of men. Which she supposed stood to reason.

Thomas sniffled and wiped his eyes one more time, pulling himself together. “Carson’s probably ready to skin me alive.”

“I think Mr. Bates is talking to him,” Anna said. “You know, a lot of his friends are being killed, too.”

“I bet they are,” Thomas said. “And he’s not swearing at the breakfast table about it.”

“I just meant, maybe you should talk to him.”

“Hah.” Thomas studied his hands for a moment. “Maybe.”

#

Thomas braced himself for a lecture, when he went inside, but all Carson said was that he trusted Thomas had brought himself under control.

“Yes, Mr. Carson,” he said dully, and went to tend to the upstairs breakfast. 

When’d finished with that, and went back downstairs, Mrs. Hughes called him into her sitting room, and poured him a cup of tea. He took it warily.

“Anna tells me you’ve been getting a lot of upsetting news lately,” she said. 

He nodded. “I’m sorry, about the…language. I really didn’t mean to say it out loud.”

“I understand. But perhaps it would be better not to open your letters at the table, if they might be upsetting, and you’re feeling…fragile.”

She had a point. “Yes, Mrs. Hughes.”

And then Carson put him on linen-pressing duty, which was easy and fairly pleasant work—and kept him out of the public eye, in the pressing room, which was probably the point.

A day or two later, Thomas got two good-news letters, which put him in a much less bleak frame of mind. In the morning post was a letter from Theo. He opened this one with some trepidation—and in the boot room—because Theo had maintained his stature as their set’s one-man information bureau, despite repeated changes of headquarters, and thus sent an awful lot of letters that said, “I don’t know if you’ve heard yet, but….”

This one, however, contained the welcome news that Joey _had_ been seen recently, on his way back from a stay at a dressing station, where he’d been with the fever that was going around. Theo theorized that his letters might not have caught up with him there, if he wasn’t replying—apparently, that was known to happen sometimes.

Theo went on,

 _As for us, we’re managing all right. We’ve had two spells up at the Front so far, and nothing too dreadful has happened. It’s terribly muddy, and the living arrangements don’t even bear speaking about, but we and the chaps across the way have reached a sort of understanding about keeping the noise down, if you get my meaning. Right now we are at a rest camp, which is not_ _as restful as it sounds. If they don’t have anything useful for you to do, they make you go out and play football, of all things. **(It’s like being back at school! –S.)** I’m sure we would all get more benefit from a nice nap, but there you have it. _

_Syl is attempting to persuade the powers that be to allow us to substitute amateur dramatics for the football, which as I’m sure you can imagine is a great deal more appealing. We have no actresses, of course, but Syl has gamely offered to be our leading lady. He thinks he has just about brought them round to the idea, but it might have to wait for our next spell of “rest”—we’ve been told to turn out for parade first thing after breakfast, in full kit, which is often all the warning we get that we’re going back up. **(Grrrrr! This is me practicing my war face. --S.)**_

Here, there was a little drawing in the margin, of a face with dark, heavily slanted eyebrows.

_We are well supplied with biscuits and cigarettes from Lady M.—she sends us a parcel nearly every week—but Syl would particularly like some lip rouge ( **The redder the better! –S)** and silk stockings, for the play, if you have any idea where to get things like that. Somehow, the Army has neglected to supply us with these essential articles. **(We will send you the money if you’re able to find them. –S)**_

_Much love to you and Peter, from both of us!_

_Theo **& Syl**_

Thomas huffed a bit at the final request—no, he certainly did _not_ know where to find stockings and lip rouge. He supposed he could ask Anna, though. 

He was glad they’d lucked into a quiet sector, as Peter told him they were called, where the Boche were no more interested in being shot at than you were. Peter didn’t spend much time in those, as there wasn’t a great deal for the RAMC lads to do there, apart from collecting Sick, but he’d said that often they’d even stop shelling when they saw the Red Cross—in return for the same courtesy when their own stretcher-bearers came up. 

The afternoon post brought a letter from Peter, which was even more welcome. It said,

_18 April, 1915_

_Dear Thomas,_

_Sorry my last letter was so glum! I suppose I was mistaken about what Capt. R. thought, because he has come through splendidly. This morning, he called me in specially and told me that he’d been asked if he could spare a man or two to fill in on one of the hospital ships in the Channel, and he immediately thought of me. (Apparently, almost all of the orderlies that normally work on it are down with trench fever—but they’ve fumigated the whole place, so don’t worry about that.) It just goes to show that you never know your luck._

_It really is a perfect solution, because it’s away from the sound of the guns, which is all I wanted, but isn’t considered a plum assignment, so the other fellows won’t mind me getting it. There has been some teasing on the theme of taking a holiday at the seaside, bringing back a stick of rock, etc., but a lot of them have admitted in private that they are afraid of U-boats, and say they wouldn’t swap with me if they could. (I’m not worried—hospital ships are exempt from attack. Dressing stations are supposed to be, too, but I figure it’s a lot easier to avoid accidentally hitting a great big ship with Red Cross markings all over it, than a section of trench that looks just like everything else.)_

_Besides the U-boat question, a number of them were seasick on the way over—luckily, I’m not susceptible to that—so that’s another bunch that say, “Better you than me!” (Capt. R. did ask for another volunteer, and eventually Issac S. said he supposed he’d go, if nobody else wanted to.) It really is frightfully important, over here, that your mates not think that you are trying to shirk your share of the unpleasantness—but if there’s something you don’t mind and the other bloke does, you can swap it for something you mind and the other bloke doesn’t, if you follow me._

_It’s a temporary assignment—probably four to six weeks, which is about how long trench fever usually lasts—so I’ll be coming back to my mates once the other chaps are all better. That’s important; I wouldn’t want to have to get used to a whole new group of people. I’m sure I’ll find the guns easier to bear once I’ve had a bit of a break from them._

_We aren’t leaving just yet—Capt. R. has to arrange the details—but we’ve been asked to pack our kits and be ready to go immediately when our orders arrive, so I think it’s going to work out. I will only be in England long enough to unload the patients on each trip, but I will wave in the direction of Yorkshire. In the meantime, light a cigarette for me!_

_Affectionately yours,_

_P.F._

Thomas happily reported this news when Mrs. Hughes made the now-routine inquiry after Peter’s well-being, at dinner. 

“He’s quite well, in fact. He’s going to be doing a spell of duty on a hospital ship—one of the medical officers recommended him for it specially.”

“Where’s that, then?” Maud asked. “In the Mediterranean?”

Thomas shook his head. “The Channel.”

“Will there be a chance for you to see him, when he’s in England?” Anna asked.

At the head of the table, Carson cleared his throat pointedly.

“No,” Thomas said. “They only stop long enough to unload the wounded, then turn around and go back for more. It’s just as well—if they got home leave out of it, all of his mates would be envious of him being chosen for it.”

“Why did the officer choose him, I wonder?” asked O’Brien, with just a hint of insinuation.

“Because he’s very good at his job, I expect,” answered Thomas. 

#

“Anna,” William said, in an urgent whisper.

She was on her way up to wake and dress the young ladies, but it sounded important, so she backtracked and said, “I’ve only got a minute—can we talk later?”

“I know,” he said. “But quick, what ship did Thomas say that Mr. Fitzroy was on?”

“He didn’t,” she said, feeling cold. “Why?”

He ducked back into Carson’s pantry and came back out with a newspaper. The headline announced, “GERMAN ATROCITY: U-Boat Sinks Hospital Ship _Albion_.” Under that, “Hundreds Unaccounted For.”

“Oh, dear God,” Anna said. 

They stood in silence for a moment, until Mr. Carson bustled up and asked what they were standing around for.

Wordlessly, William showed him the newspaper.

“Good heavens,” Mr. Carson said. “Will they stop at nothing? Still, we had best carry on….”

“It’s not just that, Mr. Carson,” said William. “We don’t know if—Thomas’s friend….”

“It might not be the one,” Anna said. “He might very well know the name, and not have mentioned it.”

“But someone better break it to him gently, just in case,” William added. 

Anna had a pretty good idea who that “someone” had better be. “I have to go upstairs and dress them,” she said. “Can you keep him from seeing a paper, somehow, until I get back?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Carson, “but if any of the family should happen to mention it while we’re serving breakfast….”

“Mention what?” Mrs. Hughes asked, appearing in the doorway.

Wordlessly, Anna showed her the paper.

“Oh dear,” she said. “Is that….?”

“We don’t know,” Anna said. “We don’t know if _he_ knows, what ship Mr. Fitzroy is on.”

“Right,” said Mrs. Hughes. “Shall I go up and see to the girls, while you speak to him, or would you rather I told him?”

Anna did _not_ want to tell him—would have much rather foisted it off on Mrs. Hughes—but God alone knew what Thomas would say or do, if it _was_ Mr. Fitzroy’s ship. She’d know not to take it personally, whatever it was. “I think it would be best if I pulled him aside. If it’s nothing, I’ll come right up and take over from you.”

Mrs. Hughes nodded. “If it is bad news, it might be best if he hears it from a friend.”

After getting Mr. Carson’s permission to take the paper with her, Anna went to look for Thomas.

#

“No,” Thomas heard himself say. “It can’t be. There must be loads of them. It can’t be the one.”

Peter had only gone on the hospital ship to get away from the sound of the guns. It can’t have sunk.

“I’m sure there’s dozens of hospital ships,” Anna said, her face pale and worried beneath her cap.

“Yeah,” Thomas said, trying to make himself believe it. “It’s awful, though. Sinking a hospital ship.” That was what you were supposed to say, wasn’t it? “Have they no shame?” His voice sounded distant to him, as if he were standing in the far corner of the boot room, looking at himself holding the newspaper.

Anna stroked his arm. “Sit down a minute,” she suggested.

He shook his head. “They’ll be coming down to breakfast any second. I’d better get up there.” That was what he’d be doing if nothing had happened, and nothing _had_ happened. Not to him, or to…anyone else he knew. 

“I’m sure Mr. Carson will understand, if you’re not quite ready.”

“If I stopped working every time the Hun killed somebody, I’d never do anything,” he pointed out. 

Thomas sleepwalked through the day, trying determinedly not to think about anything. He only came awake to pounce on the post each time it was delivered, hoping for a cheery letter from Peter saying, “I’m here on the _Something-Other-Than-Albion_ , and it’s just the break I needed” or a frustrated one saying that his secondment had fallen through, or he was halfway to the port but kept getting stuck on railway sidings waiting for troop trains to pass. Anything.

The evening post brought a field postcard, which made his stomach lurch, but it was only from Theo. The phrases he’d left un-crossed-out were “I have been admitted to hospital” “wounded” “and am going on well” and “Letter follows at first opportunity.”

On any other day, this news would have occupied all his attention, as he tried to figure out what Theo wanted to communicate with his selections from the few printed phrases. Now, he distantly noted that “am getting on well” sounded like his wound wasn’t serious—but in that case, why send Thomas a field postcard at all? It wasn’t as though they wrote on such a regular basis that Thomas would worry if he didn’t hear from him for a few days.

That night in his room, he started to write a letter to Peter, passing along the little news he’d gotten, and speculating about what it might mean, but he found himself weeping over it—why, he didn’t know—and crumpled the paper up and threw it away.

The next day’s papers had a list—a partial list, they emphasized—of some of the survivors rescued from the _Albion_. Peter’s name wasn’t on it.

There were other harrowing details, too—that survivors had been rescued by two ships, a gunboat and a collier, but the latter had been sunk, as well, less than an hour later. That the missing included patients, the ship’s crew, RAMC officers and men, and nursing sisters. That it had taken less than a quarter of an hour for the ship to go down.

The story was on the front page of every paper going, and everyone was talking about it—but the conversations in the servants’ hall stopped abruptly whenever Thomas entered.

When Carson distributed the evening post, he very gravely handed Thomas a letter. Theo’s handwriting. He took it out into the courtyard to read. Theo couldn’t have heard anything about Peter before Thomas had—could he?

He had not, but what he did have to say was bad enough.

_Thomas_ ,

_Syl’s dead. I’ve been writing letters all morning, and every time I say it, it seems less real. I keep expecting him to turn up._

_We were out on a wiring party. You know. You go out after dark and fix the barbed wire in no-man’s-land. It’s not very dangerous, if you’re in a quiet sector. But this time they started shooting at us._

_I guess Jerry had a new officer show up, who didn’t like the sector being so quiet. Or something. The other bloke, you don’t know him, was killed instantly. Syl and me never liked him much. We were both hit, not too bad I thought. Syl’s was in the leg, mine in the ribs. We crawled back to the trench, and while we were waiting for the stretcher-bearers, Syl made a joke about being glad he hadn’t gotten his new stockings yet. (He ordered some, from Paris. The fucking parcel caught up with us in hospital today. They gave it to me, cause they knew he was my mate.)_

_He was dead by the time we got to the dressing station. I didn’t find out until the next day—they gave me something for the pain, and I was right out. It wasn’t until I woke up and started asking after him._

_Bloody hell, Thomas. I don’t know what the fuck we’re doing out here. (Pardon my French, Syl would say.)_

_Maybe don’t tell Peter right away. I heard he was having a rough time of it._

_Theo_

The first emotion to cut through Thomas’s shock was _relief_. Syl and Peter couldn’t _both_ be dead, not at the same time. Life was cruel, but it wasn’t that cruel. 

If Syl was dead, it had to mean that Peter wasn’t. 

He said as much, to Bates, when he came out to check on Thomas. 

(That was something people did, these past few days. If he was out of plain view more than a few minutes, someone came looking. Usually Anna, sometimes Bates, occasionally Mrs. Hughes or William. Madge once.)

“Sure,” Bates said, after a long hesitation. “I’m sure you’re right.”

For a moment, Thomas let himself believe it. 

He should have known better.

The next day started with Bates racing off to London before breakfast—his mother had taken a turn for the worse in the night, and he was needed urgently. Thomas would have expected that to take everyone’s attention off him—and he’d have been glad if it had—but Carson called him in to his pantry and asked if Thomas “felt up” to looking after his lordship, while Bates was gone.

“Of course,” Thomas said. “Don’t I always?”

“Well,” said Carson. “I could do it this time. Or William.”

“Why?” asked Thomas. “I’m fine.”

“Suit yourself.”

His lordship was surprised, to find Thomas in the dressing room instead of Bates, but the only questions he asked were about Bates, and Bates’s mum, which was something of a relief. He was getting tired of being asked how he was holding up, or if he’d heard anything.

“I’m not really sure, my lord” Thomas explained, getting out his lordship’s tweeds. “All Mr. Bates said was that it was his mother, and he had to leave immediately. But the doctor telephoned before most of us were even up—Mrs. Patmore answered it. I’d think he’d have waited until a bit later in the morning, if it weren’t very serious.”

“I daresay you’re right. Well, keep me posted, if he sends word.”

“Yes, my lord.”

When he looked at the morning papers, after serving and clearing the breakfast, he found that the story of the _Albion_ , while still on the front page, was now tucked into a corner near the bottom. The new lead story was the Allied landing at the Dardanelles, followed by hand-wringing over the Germans’ use of poison gas at Ypres. 

Thomas felt his sense of foreboding lift a bit. The Dardanelles were nothing to him, nor Ypres—Peter wasn’t anywhere near there, and hadn’t ever been. If the world was getting over the story—moving on to the next nine-days’ wonder—wasn’t it likely that the War Office had notified everyone that needed to be notified? 

It was a little surprising, maybe, that he hadn’t heard from Peter—he might at least have dropped Thomas a field postcard. But maybe they didn’t realize, over there, what a commotion the British papers had made over the _Albion_. Likely he’d written a letter, saying, “I hope you weren’t worried—there are dozens of hospital ships, and mine’s the _Whatever-it-is,”_ and it was held up somewhere waiting to be censored. 

Or maybe the _letter_ had been on the _Albion_. Did they put post on hospital ships? Thomas couldn’t think of a reason why they wouldn’t. That was a bit sad, thinking of a letter from Peter slowly disintegrating at the bottom of the Channel, but not so _very_ sad, and he had no idea why his eyes were stinging. 

When the back-door bell rang, just after the servants’ tea, and Thomas answered it to find a boy from the telegraph office standing there, he told himself it had to be from Mr. Bates. Saying that his mother had died, or had gotten better, or had flown to the moon. Or maybe it was about Maud’s brother, or Mrs. Patmore’s nephew, or Davy Small, or God knows who.

When the telegraph office boy said, “It’s for a T. Barrow,” he very nearly said—may actually have said—“No it’s bloody well not!”

The next thing he knew, the door was shut, and Anna was standing next to him. He handed her the telegram—still in its envelope. 

She tore it open, looked at it, and shook her head, tears shining in her eyes.

#

Robert was on the telephone with the War Office when Carson came up to the front hall, and stood beside the dressing gong. “Yes,” Robert said, signaling to Carson that it would just be a moment. “Yes, I understand. But if something does come up, you’ll keep me in mind?”

The fellow on the other end assured him that he would—just like they all had. After thanking him and saying his goodbyes, Robert hung up. 

Carson raised an eyebrow, and Robert shook his head. 

As the gong sounded, he trudged upstairs. You wouldn’t think it would be so hard, finding a way to serve your country. They took all the young men Matthew’s age, and even younger—the Old Etonian newsletter said that almost the entire Upper Sixth Form had gone. There had to be some sort of a place for an experienced officer, even if he was just a tiny bit long in the tooth.

Preoccupied with these thoughts, he didn’t notice if Barrow was a little subdued. After asking after Bates—there was no news—he said, “I expect the other servants will be interested to hear that Mr. Matthew is headed for France quite soon. It might be as soon as next week. God, I envy him. Having the chance to make a real difference, while I wait around here doing nothing.”

“Well, then, you’re an idiot.”

Robert could not have been more surprised if Isis the dog had suddenly leapt up and torn at his throat. “I beg your pardon?”

“I mean it,” said Thomas. “What the bloody hell do you think is going to happen to Mr. Matthew over there? Same thing that happens to everyone—he’s going to die. You _envy_ him? You have no idea how bloody _stupid_ you sound. You ought to be _grateful_ you don’t have to go. Even Bates has the sense to realize he’s well out of it.”

Robert stared at him. Thomas was wide-eyed and breathing hard, Robert’s white evening waistcoat twisted in his hands. “How dare you!”

Thomas took a step backward, the high color draining out of his face, leaving him even paler than usual. His mouth worked soundlessly for a moment, and then he said, “I’m so sorry, my lord. I don’t—”

And then, to Robert’s utter horror, Thomas burst into tears. It was, if anything, even more shocking than the shouting, and Robert belatedly realized that something must have happened, to provoke such an uncharacteristic outburst. 

What in heaven’s name was he supposed to do now? He barely knew what to do when his own wife or daughters started crying in front of him, let alone a _footman_. 

The first step was probably to stop him sniveling into the sleeves of his livery coat. Robert found a handkerchief in the pocket of his day suit, and shoved it at him. “Sit down before you fall down.”

Thomas sat, on the edge of the dressing room bed, twisting the handkerchief in his hands. 

After briefly considering the merits of slapping him across the face, Robert said, “Pull yourself together, and tell me what happened.”

Thomas’s mouth worked soundlessly some more. “I….” He shook his head, fumbled in his coat pocket, and held out a telegram.

Oh. 

Robert took it, and read, _Deeply regret to inform you Cpl. P. Fitzroy missing and presumed dead in wreck of HMHS Albion, May 1, 1915._

“Dear God. I’m so dreadfully sorry, Thomas.” Crossing over to the sideboard, he poured a stiff whiskey and brought it back to Thomas. “Here, this’ll brace you up a bit.”

Thomas knocked it back in a single gulp, and dried his eyes. His voice absolutely flat, he said, “I’m very sorry, my lord, for speaking to you that way. I hope you can forgive me.”

“I apologize as well,” Robert said. “What I said was…insensitive, in the circumstances.” He wasn’t entirely sure what he _had_ said—he hadn’t really been thinking about it—but he knew he’d been annoyed that the Army didn’t want him back, a sentiment that could hardly be received with sympathy by a man who had just lost his…intimate friend. “We’ll say no more about it.”

“Thank you, my lord.” He sniffled, and looked at the glass in his hands as if he had no idea what it was for or why he had it.

“I’ll, ah, I’ll telephone the War Office tomorrow, and find out if…if there are any other details.” _Presumed dead_ , he knew, was the worst news to get, for the glimmer of hope that it gave—hope that was, in nearly every case, false. The Army didn’t say “presumed dead” unless they had reason to.

Thomas looked up at him, blankly. 

“Why don’t you go—” _Anywhere that isn’t here_. “To your room, or somewhere. I’ll ring for Carson, and he can—” _Not sit in my dressing room and cry_. “Finish things up here. I’ll explain to him that you’re—” _In absolutely no state to be working. “_ Not well enough to serve at dinner.” _And ask him why in God’s name he let you come up here in the first place_.

“Yes, my lord,” said Thomas, his voice still expressionless. After a moment, he got up and left the room.

Robert took a moment to collect himself before ringing for Carson. He’d have had a bracer himself, except that Thomas had taken the glass with him.

#

The next day, everyone was treading on eggshells around Thomas. Anna and Mrs. Hughes kept _patting_ him, and most of the others avoided so much as looking at him. Carson, especially. At breakfast, when he’d been outlining the day’s tasks, all he said to Thomas was that he “had best stay downstairs for the time being.”

His lordship had told him, of course, about what Thomas had said. 

Whatever he _had_ said. He had hardly been thinking, obviously. He vaguely remembered something about his lordship being an idiot, and that he ought to be grateful not to have to go and get killed, and several swearwords. 

He supposed _he_ ought to be grateful that he hadn’t been sacked instantly. He felt as though, at the slightest touch, he’d _shatter_. If they’d tossed him out of the house last night, he might have wandered in front of an oncoming train, or tripped and fallen face-first in a puddle, and drowned there because he couldn’t remember how to stand up, or why he might want to.

It still might happen if they sacked him today. 

For most of the morning, he sat at the servants’ hall table, staring at the grain of the wood in front of him. He was not at all surprised when, about mid-day, Mrs. Hughes took him by the arm and herded him into Carson’s pantry. 

He might have been a little surprised to see his lordship there, if he hadn’t been too numb to feel much of anything. He stared at the blotter on Carson’s desk, vaguely aware of Carson and Mrs. Hughes hovering behind him—likely in case he started shouting again.

“I spoke to the War Office,” his lordship said. “It isn’t good news, I’m afraid.”

How could it possibly be?

“It seems that all of the survivors have been identified. They are still looking for remains, but because of the speed of the sinking, they expect that a great many will not be recovered.”

Of course they wouldn’t be. He wasn’t even going to get a grave to mourn over, and hadn’t expected one. He knew he was supposed to say something now—probably _thank you, my lord_ —but he couldn’t manage it, could barely manage to move his head in something that might pass for a nod. 

“As you’re his next of kin, they’ll send you any personal effects that may be found, and any pay owing to his account, but these things can take several weeks, or even months.”

He managed another fraction of a nod. 

“I’m dreadfully sorry, about all this,” his lordship went on. 

_Just get on with it_. 

But before his lordship could say anything else, Mrs. Hughes took him by the arm again, this time showing him into her sitting room, where he sat in a rocking-chair and looked at the rug.

At some point, she wrapped his hands around a cup of tea, and sat across from him in a chair she’d pulled so close their knees were almost touching. “I know you’re upset,” she said. “But you must go on. Mr. Fitzroy wouldn’t want to see you like this, would he?”

Thomas thought of the time, back when he’d been a junior footman at Lady Waterstone’s, and he’d been upset—well, no, he’d been _crying_ , like he’d been crying for most of the past day, although he’d had less reason to then; it was only his mother who was dead—and Peter had let him crawl into bed with him and sleep with his head on Peter’s chest. 

No, Peter wouldn’t want to see him like this. But he wouldn’t mind, either. Not like that. Wouldn’t want him to stop because it was embarrassing for all concerned.

“He’s dead,” Thomas said. “He doesn’t get a say.”

In answer, Mrs. Hughes took his hands in hers and guided the teacup—warm, rather than hot—to his mouth.

He drank, because it was that or drown. He supposed that was a good thing to know, that he didn’t want to drown. 

“Is there anywhere,” she asked, when he had finished drinking the tea, “that you would rather be, right now? Anyone you might stay with for a bit?”

He shook his head. If Peter weren’t dead—if the entire _world_ —weren’t dead, he’d have an answer to that one. He’d go to London, and see Peter. He’d even take Theo, in a pinch, but Theo was nearly as far out of reach as Peter was. 

“All right, then,” she said. “You’ll stay here, and we’ll do our best to look after you.”

Thomas wanted to say that he didn’t need looking after—no. He didn’t _want_ to say that. He wanted to want to say it, maybe. 

“And I hope it doesn’t need saying, you’re not to worry about getting back to work until you feel up to it.”

Here, he looked up at her. It felt like the first thing he’d done of his own volition since opening the door for the telegram boy. He ought, he knew, to communicate with his expression that he knew perfectly well that, at _best_ , he had a lot of making up to do before he could even think about begging to keep his job, and more likely they were simply waiting a decent interval to sack him. But he had no idea what to do with his face, to express that idea. Or even if it was possible for a face to express it. 

“None of us are heartless enough to worry you with any of that at a time like this,” she added. “Not even Mr. Carson.”

Some small part of him, the part where his survival instincts lived— _a sort of low cunning_ —recognized it as an opening. They felt too sorry for him, right now, to make any decisions about his job. If he could, somehow, slide back into the routine of the house, while he was still too pathetic to sack, the whole thing just might blow over. 

It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was all he had.

Now he just had to decide if he cared enough to do it. Drink, or drown?

#

“And how is Thomas bearing up?” Robert asked, as Bates helped him into his evening jacket. Bates had come back that afternoon, and they had discussed his mother’s health—improving, though apparently she’d need a girl to live with her—in the earlier stages of dressing for dinner. “He was in the dining room at luncheon, briefly.” It was his first appearance upstairs in days. “He looked fairly ghastly.”

“He’s…trying, my lord,” Bates said. “Soldiering on.”

Robert huffed, wincing inwardly at the choice of word. He wondered if Bates, too, thought he was an idiot for wanting to go back into the Army. 

But to ask would put Bates in an impossible position. “I hope Carson isn’t pushing him to get back to work. I’d rather he wait a little longer than—” _Cause another scene_. “Put him under too much of a strain.”

“He seems to be pushing himself,” Bates answered. “Anna says Mrs. Hughes spoke to him, about taking the time he needs, and that Mr. Carson hasn’t really asked him to do anything, the last few days. Having something to do may help, in some small way.”

Well, Robert wouldn’t begrudge him anything that helped—but he did wonder if he ought to be kept out of the dining room. 

He hoped that Carson would have realized that on his own, but Thomas was in the dining room again at dinner, taking plates away at one point, and at another bringing in a sauce. 

“Thomas, are you quite all right?” Sybil asked, when he offered her the sauce.

“Yes, my lady, thank you for asking,” he said, in that same dreadful monotone he’d spoken in after he’d finished shouting at Robert. 

When the ladies had gone out, and Carson brought him his port, Robert gestured for him to stay. “I wanted to speak to you about Thomas.” He glanced toward the servants’ door.

“I sent him downstairs, my lord,” Carson said, understanding his meaning.

“Good. I’m glad that he’s beginning to get back to normal, but I wonder if the dining room is really the best place for him at the moment.”

Carson dipped his head. “I confess, I did not entirely have the heart to tell him not to, but if his appearance is distressing the young ladies, obviously I must.”

“Mm. I daresay we can handle it, but I’m not sure about the day after tomorrow, when we have Sir William Camberleigh to dine. With him being in the War Office, there’s bound to be,” he paused to choose his words carefully. “Talk of distressing subjects.”

“Yes, my lord. I thought of asking if Mr. Molesley could assist us that evening.”

“Very good. I should have realized you’d be on top of it. Ah, I don’t suppose there’s anywhere he could go, for a day or two?” If he simply happened to be elsewhere on the evening of the dinner party, Carson wouldn’t have to attempt an explanation of why Molesley had been brought in to fill in for him.

“I’m afraid not. Mrs. Hughes asked him, several days ago.”

“I thought as much. You’ll simply have to think of something to say to him, I’m afraid. It would be cruel to put him in a position in which he might…embarrass himself.”

“I quite agree, my lord.” He hesitated. “And—my lord?”

“Yes?”

“Last autumn, when you said that I might come to regret it, if I prevented Thomas from seeing the man before he left.” He hesitated. “You were right. I would regret it.”

Robert nodded. “I knew you would.”

#

Banished from the dining room, Thomas sat on a crate in the courtyard, smoking and reading Peter’s final letter. 

It had come a couple of days ago—the sight of his writing on the envelope had caused Thomas’s heart to lurch with a moment’s unreasonable hope that the telegram had been wrong. It hadn’t been, of course—the letter had just been delayed. Peter had written it days before the _Albion_ went down. 

Thomas had read it at least a dozen times already, like poking at a wound to see if it still hurt.

_28 April, 1915_

_Dear Thomas,_

_I hope you felt me waving to you from XXXXXXX! I was there earlier today, after completing my first voyage on His Majesty’s Hospital Ship Albion_. _We’re back in France now, and I’m told we probably have a day or two before we go again._

_The job’s just what I needed—a lot of hard work, but I’m away from the guns and the filth. (It’s been wet, and absolutely everything in our sector is coated with mud, from our clothes to our beds to our food. I hadn’t realized how depressing it all was, until I got away from it for a bit.) A few of the patients brought the dirt of the trenches with them onto the ship, but most had been in a base hospital for at least a few days, and so had been cleaned up._

_We do little actual treatment on board—everyone is supposed to have had dressings changed, medications given, etc., before leaving the hospital—so once we’ve got the stretcher cases settled in, the bulk of the work is simply distributing tea and cigarettes, reminding the walking cases about keeping their life-belts on, and handling the occasional bout of sea-sickness. The men who are out of the woods but going back to Blighty for a spell of recuperation—or for good—are in fairly high spirits, as you might imagine. It makes a nice change from the dressing station, where the patients are either in a very uncertain state, or headed right back to the trenches once they’ve been patched up._

_Before I left the dressing station, a magazine was making its way round our “lightly wounded” wards, with an article by some bloke who claimed to have visited an “RAMC field hospital” in France. (The RAMC doesn’t operate anything with that name; it was either a base hospital, a dressing station, or a clearing station—if it exists at all.) Anyway, he went on about the “bull-dog spirit of Tommy Atkins” and his “keenness to get back to the Front as quickly as possible. Oh, how the men laughed! You could follow the thing’s progress through the wards by the general hilarity it provoked._

_(I will say, of T. Atkins, that he generally makes a manful attempt to conceal his disappointment at finding out his wound isn’t a Blighty one, and often finds some genuine consolation in reminding himself that at least he won’t be leaving his mates in the lurch. Very rarely does he heave a bedroom utensil at the head of the unfortunate orderly who has given him the bad news.)_

_But the ones we get on ship have no disappointment to conceal, and it makes for a sort of holiday atmosphere. (There are some quite serious cases, of course, going back for specialized treatment, but they are given buckets of morphine to keep them comfortable on board, and are more-or-less living baggage while we’re dealing with them.) The journey back to France is less fun, as we are occupied in cleaning up the wards for the next set of patient-passengers, but it’s not too bad._

_We’ve also got a decent billet in port—we’re put up in the spare room of an old couple who speak not a word of English, but seem pleased enough to have us here. There’s four of us and two beds, which they seem apologetic about, but we’re all quite used to sleeping in our blankets on the floor, so having a proper bed every second night is a real treat—as is getting to sleep the whole night through!_

_Light a cigarette for me._

_Affectionately yours,_

_P.F._

It was good, Thomas told himself, that Peter had been having a decent time, right before he died. As quickly as the papers said the ship had gone down, he’d not have had much time to dread it. If there had to be a last letter from Peter, at least it was one where he’d been happy and optimistic.

It certainly didn’t make it all worse, somehow, that he’d died just when he thought things were going well. 

And Thomas had managed to read it without crying this time, so clearly, he was on the mend. Which Peter would be glad to hear, if he was in a position to hear or to be glad about anything. 

Finishing his cigarette, he went inside, wondering idly if he’d manage to eat much of anything at dinner. The smells coming from the kitchen were a tiny bit appetizing, so perhaps he would.

But before he got to the servants’ hall, Carson stopped him. “Thomas—a word, please.”

Thomas followed him into his pantry, warily. 

“As you know, we have guests to dine the evening after tomorrow.”

Thomas wasn’t sure if he _had_ known that, but he nodded. Was this going to be a lecture about how it was time to pull himself together?

“Since you aren’t quite back on your feet yet, we’ve decided to have Mr. Molesley come and help out.”

They were running out of patience with him, more like. Shaking his head slightly, he said, “Why? I mean—I’m sure I can manage, Mr. Carson.”

Carson took a deep breath. “One of the gentlemen coming is from the War Office. His lordship is concerned that it might be too much for you.”

Of course. That was what his lordship’s _we’ll say no more about it_ had meant. That they’d shuffle him off the scene, replace him with Molesley—of all people—but not actually say why. “I see.”

“He would also like you to know that,” Carson hesitated. “There is no hurry for you to be back on duty in the dining room.” He paused again, and added in a warning sort of tone, “I hope you know that it was very kind of him to think of you.”

Likely, his lordship could barely stand to look at him. Thomas wouldn’t exactly want to look at him, either, if there was any room in his heart for humiliation over the scene he’d caused. “Yes, Mr. Carson.”

“Very well.” Carson gestured for him to go, and Thomas went.

Dinner tasted like cardboard, and back in his room for the night, he wrote letters to Theo and Lisel, telling them the news. He’d left it far longer than he should have, but he just hadn’t been able to face it. 

Neither letter was his best literary effort—he simply said that Peter had been on the _Albion_ , and that he’d had an official telegram; to Theo, he managed to add something about being sorry about Syl—but at least it was done. He’d closed that chapter of his life; time to start thinking about the next.

The trouble was, he’d grown used to thinking about his problems by writing about them to Peter. It would be so much easier to decide what to do, about Peter being dead, if he could just ask Peter. 

He actually got out a piece of paper and started, thinking it might help, to pretend, but just writing the words _Dear Peter_ gave him an ache in his throat. He crumpled up the paper and tossed it away.

He wasn’t actually sacked yet, was one thing Peter would point out. At least, no one had said so, and that meant there was room to maneuver. Molesley couldn’t be his permanent replacement; he already had a job, at Mrs. Crawley’s house. 

He could, conceivably, throw himself into his work—the part of it he wasn’t forbidden to do—make some sort of apology to his lordship, and just possibly hold on to his job. 

It seemed like an awful lot of work. But then, finding _another_ job would be even more work. The rest of his life stretched out in front of him, blank and hollow. God, if he was unlucky, he could live another fifty years. And he couldn’t imagine enjoying any of them. 

It wasn’t until the next morning, after a long and restless night, that it occurred to him that there was a simple and obvious solution, to the problem of a blank and empty life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HMHS Anglia was sunk on 17 November, 1915, by a mine laid by a German U-Boat. A coal ship called the Lusitania (after the passenger liner sunk in May of 1915) came to her aid, and was also sunk. 164 lives were lost: 129 patients, 25 of the ship’s crew, 9 Royal Army Medical Corps personnel, and 1 nurse from Queen Alexandria’s Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve. The sinking received massive media attention and cause widespread outrage, as the Hague conventions of 1907 prohibited attacking hospital ships marked with the Red Cross. (It was widely believed at the time that it had been sunk by a torpedo, which would have meant it was deliberately targeted, as opposed to a mine, which would not.)  
> For the purposes of the story, the sinking had to occur earlier in the year, primarily so that the timeline of the story can eventually match up with that of canon.  
> The timing of the sinking of the fictional Albion is very close to that of the real-life sinking of the passenger liner Lusitania, also by German action, which also caused a massive public outcry. I chose to omit any mention of the Lusitania from this story to avoid confusing the reader by introducing another sinking that is not directly relevant to the story. However, the reader should assume that the sinking of the Lusitania did happen in the world of this story, as the event—and specifically the large number of American passengers killed in it—was a major factor in the US decision to join the war, which in turn contributed significantly the war to ending when it did.


	4. Chapter Three: May-August, 1915

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas makes a drastic decision.

“Yes, I can help,” said Dr. Clarkson. “But I must warn you, it may not be as you’re expecting. They simply aren’t taking healthy young men for Home Service, and even hospital work in France is unlikely. Most likely, you’ll be a stretcher-bearer at the Front, and it is not an easy job, nor a safe one. You may even be taking the place of a corpsman who was injured or even killed in the line of duty.”

A queer sort of peace settled over Thomas. “That’s just what I want, sir,” he said, and it was the truth, though he hadn’t thought of it that way before this moment. “You see, my brother was on the _Albion_.” Dr. Clarkson was in the Army, and as far as the Army was concerned, Peter had been his brother. That would be the truth, from now on. 

“Oh,” said Dr. Clarkson. “Oh, I see. I’m dreadfully sorry to hear that. Was he a patient?”

Thomas shook his head. “An orderly, sir. He’d been at the Front, an Advanced Dressing Station, but he was on temporary assignment to the _Albion_.”

“I see,” he repeated. “So you…well, naturally. I hope you understand there’s not much chance of getting you into his old unit, specifically.”

“Yes, sir. I hadn’t expected to.”

“All right. Well, why don’t we step into the examining room. I’ll do your physical examination, and we can get started on the paperwork.”

While he examined him, Dr. Clarkson asked him a number of questions about his education and his work experience—like a job interview, which Thomas supposed it was, although he’d never had one before where he was stripped to the waist. 

Unless you counted Philip Crowborough.

“You’re perfectly fit,” Dr. Clarkson said, while Thomas was doing his shirt back up. “And I don’t see any difficulties with recommending you. I’m sure you realize that there are many differences between a large house and a medical facility—but there are also some similarities, which should be of some help in finding your way.”

“I hope so, sir,” Thomas said, doing up his tie. “My brother wrote me every week, so I like to think I have at least a bit of an idea of what to expect.” 

“More than some, I’m sure,” Dr. Clarkson said. “It’ll be heavier work than you’re used to, but they’ll take care of that during training.” He made a few notes on a form. “I’ll make a few telephone calls,” he decided. “Your next step will be to take the papers to the recruiting center in Ripon, but I may be able to do a thing or two to get you through the process more smoothly. Come back tomorrow, after lunch, and I’ll hope to have everything ready for you.”

“Thank you, sir,” Thomas said, and took his leave. 

#

“You seem a bit more yourself,” Anna said to Thomas, as they sat down to lunch. He’d come down to breakfast that morning dressed in his off-duty suit instead of his livery, and had said something about an errand in the village. Perhaps the walk had done him some good—brought a bit of color into his face.

“It’s…time to start moving forward, I think,” he said. 

“I suppose so,” Anna agreed. If it was anyone else, she might have said something about it being what Mr. Fitzroy would want, but Thomas still tended to run out of the room if anyone said Mr. Fitzroy’s name. 

During lunch, he was not exactly chatty, but he did at least look at people when they spoke, which was an improvement, and he ate with more signs of appetite than he’d shown since the sinking of the _Albion_ , too. 

When they were getting up from the table, Anna heard Mrs. Hughes say to Mr. Carson, “Perhaps we don’t need Mr. Molesley tomorrow night, after all.”

“We do,” said Mr. Carson, firmly. 

That’s right, there were guests coming. It certainly made sense for Mr. Carson to have asked Mr. Molesley to fill in for Thomas—but, knowing Thomas, it could very well be that which had spurred him to pull himself together a bit, out of sheer contrariness. 

She said as much to Mr. Bates, when they were in the pressing room later, and he agreed,” I expect you’re right. Thomas would probably come back from the dead if somebody told him he couldn’t.”

“Whatever helps,” Anna said. “Of course, he can’t be expected to simply get over it, but it can’t do him any good to wallow in grief.”

“No. It’s strange to see him looking so gutted—I think I’d be pleased to have him insult me.”

Anna wouldn’t have said it, but she would have been a bit glad, too. “Did he ever speak to you—before all this—about all of his friends dying?”

Mr. Bates raised an eyebrow.

“Apparently he has a great many friends that none of us know anything about. Or had. At least half a dozen of them have been killed, and he expects the rest to be any minute. Even before what happened to Mr. Fitzroy, he was having trouble coping. I suggested that you…well, that you know what it’s like.”

“It may be different for me. Most of them are blokes I haven’t heard from since I left the Army. I get a letter from someone I haven’t thought about in over a decade, and it says, hope you’re well, don’t know if you remember so-and-so, but I heard he was killed at such-and-such.”

“The one he showed me was pretty much like that,” Anna answered. Except for the detail that it had been from the Duke of Crowborough, but mentioning that would be nothing more than gossip, so she restrained the impulse. “He said it hadn’t been any of his closest friends yet, but several of them were over there, in harm’s way. He spoke of signing up, so that he wouldn’t be the last of his friends left alive.”

Bates sighed. “Perhaps he should. I know,” he added, holding up a hand to forestall her protests, “it won’t suit him, but I don’t know how much longer he’ll be able to keep out of it, with all this talk of conscription.”

“It doesn’t seem fair,” said Anna. “That he should have to lose his…lose Mr. Fitzroy, and go himself. Nobody else has to do both.” And some, like her and Mr. Bates, didn’t have to do either.

#

Thomas was a little surprised when, as he came down in his off-duty suit after lunch, Carson asked where he was going. “Ripon,” he answered. 

“Did it occur to you to ask, before planning this outing?” Carson asked.

It was almost a relief, getting a proper scolding again. “I was under the impression you didn’t need me today, Mr. Carson.”

Carson clenched his jaw. “Very well.”

When he got down to the village, Dr. Clarkson was discussing something with a nurse, so he waited patiently, wondering a bit if he ought to try to pitch in, somehow—to show willing.

Probably not, he decided. Everyone seemed to have a clear idea of what they were supposed to be doing, and he’d probably only end up getting in the way. So he just watched, paying particular attention to what the orderlies were doing: making beds, handing out medications, changing bandages. 

When he’d finished with the nurse, Dr. Clarkson gestured for Thomas to join him in his office, so he did. 

“I have everything ready for you,” Dr. Clarkson said, “or nearly so. I’ve found out that the training group that’s forming up now is meant to supply reinforcements for various established units.”

So he _would_ be taking the place of someone who’d been killed, or at least injured. “I see. That’s fine, sir.”

“Well, that being the case, I wanted to ask if you’d like me to put in a word about having you placed with the unit that supports the local regiment, once you’ve completed your training.”

Thomas wasn’t sure what difference that made, but Dr. Clarkson made it sound as though he were doing Thomas a favor, so he said, “That’d be kind of you, sir.”

“Very well.” He wrote something on one of the forms. “It isn’t a guarantee—they’ll assign you where you’re needed—but they do need some replacement men, and the Chief Medical Officer is a friend of mine.” He wrote some more. “Lieutenant Crawley may be able to keep a bit of an eye on you, as well.”

“Thank you, sir.” That might come in handy, somehow. 

Dr. Clarkson finished writing, folded the papers, and put them in an envelope. “There you are. Take those to Ripon, and they’ll handle things from there. I would recommend that you go soon—the training group is due to report the week after next. If it fills up before you’ve signed on, it may be more difficult to get a place in the next one.”

“I planned to go today,” Thomas said.

“Good. They keep changing the eligibility criteria, you see, even though we have as much need of strong, fit men as any other corps.” 

Thomas got the bus into Ripon, and easily found the recruiting center—there was a queue, though not the overly long kind there had been at the beginning of the war. Still, he was left waiting around for quite a while before he finally got his turn with the recruiting sergeant, a red-faced and well-nourished older man. 

Looking over Thomas’s packet of papers, he said, “Already had your medical, good…RAMC? You sure you wouldn’t rather have the infantry? We’ve got a new local regiment forming up; you can sleep at home while you train.” His tone was jocular, but Thomas sensed a bit of something nasty behind it. 

“No, thanks,” Thomas said, wondering if you were supposed to call a sergeant “sir.” He ought to have asked Bates. 

“Artillery? You look like you’ve got a good arm on you.”

“I’m pretty much set on the RAMC,” he said.

“Suit yourself.” The sergeant had Thomas sign the forms and take the oath before he smiled like someone who had just reached the punch line of a particularly unpleasant practical joke, and said, “Hope you fancy carrying a stretcher at the Front. There’s no cushy hospital jobs going for fit young men.”

“That is just what I fancy,” Thomas informed him. 

That clearly wasn’t the response the sergeant was expecting; he bit back whatever he’d been about to say next. “You sure about that? The Boche can’t see your little Red Cross armband well enough to know not to shoot you—nor care if they did, I hope you know.”

At least Dr. Clarkson had delivered the warning before he’d committed himself. If anything this man was saying had been news to Thomas, it would be too late to do anything about it. “I do know. My brother was killed on the _Albion_.”

The man straightened up, muttered, “Right, then,” and briskly got through the rest of the process, without any more false affability or poorly-concealed nastiness. After telling Thomas when and where to report—it was down near London—giving him his sign-on pay and a chit for the train, and warning him that he’d be arrested if he didn’t show up, he offered what seemed like a sincere, “Good luck, lad.”

He got back to the house just in time for tea, which he felt nearly ready for, but before he could go in for it, he ran into a group of maids in the courtyard—Maud, sitting on his smoking-crate, weeping hysterically, while Anna and Madge hovered over her. 

_Bloody hell_. “Her brother?” he asked Anna, quietly enough that Maud likely wouldn’t hear over the sound of her own wailing.

Anna nodded. 

He stood for a moment, paralyzed by the need to do _something_ , and the complete absence of any idea what it ought to be. He didn’t suppose pouring her a stiff whiskey would be a good idea, even if he had any, and she already had a handkerchief. “Has anybody got her a cup of tea? No? I’ll go.”

He ducked inside, glad for the excuse to escape. There was no tea in the servants’ hall—just people standing around talking in low voices about “so unexpected” and “her poor mother”—so he ducked into the kitchen. The large earthenware teapot was sitting on the table, steaming gently, while Mrs. Patmore and Daisy and everyone bustled about trying to simultaneously set out the rest of the meal and talk about how sorry they were for Maud.

He had little trouble snagging a cup, but when he started to pour, Mrs. Patmore shouted, “Oi! What do you think you’re doing?”

If the well of sympathy hadn’t dried up before, it certainly had now. “Gettin’ Maud a cup of tea,” he answered. “Unless somebody else is doing it.”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Patmore, and brought over the sugar bowl to put in several spoonsful. “You’re right; there’s nothing like a cup of hot, sweet tea when you’ve had bad news.”

Thomas wasn’t sure he’d go that far, but he certainly didn’t have any _better_ ideas. 

He took the tea out to Maud, who blinked up at him wetly, but at least had the strength to take the cup in her own two hands. 

Tea safely delivered, he took a few steps back from the huddle of women and lit a cigarette. In Maud’s place, he’d have wanted to be left alone—he knew that for a fact—but it wasn’t as though she’d be alone even if he left, and he couldn’t smoke in the servants’ hall, since O’Brien was in there. 

“I just don’t know what to do,” Maud was saying. “How could this happen?”

A month ago, it would have been about all Thomas could do not to point out that the death of a badly wounded soldier in war-time could hardly be a massive surprise, but he knew better now. That kind of news was a shock no matter how much warning you had—you just couldn’t make yourself believe it until you had no other choice. 

“You must go home, and be with your mother,” Anna said. “I’m sure Mrs. Hughes will understand.” 

Oh, right. That was an option, for some people. 

Once Maud had finished her tea, Anna helped her to her feet, saying, “Why don’t you go upstairs with Madge, wash your face, and put a few things in a bag. I’ll speak to Mrs. Hughes. Thomas, you can check the train schedules.”

At least there was something he could do, that didn’t require trying to think of something to say to Maud. After finding out where her family lived, he went to Carson’s pantry, where the railway timetables were kept.

Carson wasn’t in there, so Thomas kept a wary eye on the door, ready to explain himself, as he copied down the train times. There was one she could catch before dinner, if she fancied sitting up on the train half the night; otherwise, she could leave after breakfast.

Over tea and for the rest of the evening, conversation in the servants’ hall was dominated by the subject of Maud and her brother, with the dinner party upstairs coming in a distant second. No one was paying much attention to Thomas, or even asked him where he’d been all afternoon. 

That was something of a relief, after the past few days, but it made it difficult to figure out how to say that he was leaving. He didn’t want to make some big announcement, as though he expected them all to fuss over him. The next day, it seemed even more awkward to bring it up—after all, he’d now been keeping it to himself for a day, and surely they’d wonder why. And he found a weird sort of pleasure in watching the business of the house go on around him, knowing that soon he’d be snipped out of the picture. 

The day after _that_ , though, he had to face up to the fact that it was time to say something. He’d be leaving in less than a week, and there were a few things he had to sort out.

First among them was giving notice. Once he did that, there would really be no need to tell anyone else—word would get out. So, after Carson came back down from serving the upstairs luncheon, Thomas knocked on the door to his pantry, went in, and said, “I’m handing in my notice, Mr. Carson. I’ve joined up, and I leave Tuesday.”

Carson raised both eyebrows. “Are you certain that’s a good idea?”

“Yes,” he said. “And there wouldn’t be much point having second thoughts now; I’ve already made my oath and taken the King’s shilling.” Not that there was, actually, a shilling anymore, but there was an oath. 

“I see. Well.” Carson cleared his throat loudly, and Thomas braced himself for a lecture on the subject of his many personal failings and the ways in which they might lead him astray in the Army. But instead, Carson stood up, extended his hand, and said, “Good luck.”

Thomas shook it. “Thank you.”

By dinner time, everyone in the house knew—including those upstairs. Thomas had been allowed to serve at dinner, and as he was going around with the meat, his lordship said, “Thomas, Carson has told me that you’ve joined up.”

“Yes, my lord,” he said. He was glad they were doing this in the dining room in front of everyone; his lordship could not possibly allude to what he’d said and done in the dressing room last week. “I report Tuesday.”

“Did you join the Duke of Manchester’s Own?” Lady Mary asked. 

That was Mr. Matthew’s regiment. “No, my lady. RAMC.”

“Oh—yes, of course.”

“I’m sure you’ll do very well,” said his lordship. “And I hope you know that we wish you all the best.”

“Thank you, my lord. That’s very kind.”

After dinner, when they were clearing the things away, William asked him how he’d done it. “Do you just go to Ripon and say ‘I want to join,’ or is there more to it?”

Thomas explained how he’d gone to Dr. Clarkson. “If you don’t have something in particular in mind, I think you can just turn up.”

“I wonder what me dad would think about me joining the RAMC? I mean, it’s not exactly dang….” William trailed off. “Sorry. I forgot.”

“They’re not taking healthy young men for hospital work,” Thomas said. “Only for jobs at the Front.”

“Right. I guess he wouldn’t like that any better than anything else, then.”

When he got downstairs, their own dinner wasn’t quite ready yet, so he went out into the courtyard for a smoke. He’d just lit up when O’Brien, of all people, joined him. 

They exchanged nods of greeting, but Thomas wasn’t about to be the first one to speak. Finally, when they were about halfway through their cigarettes, she said, “You’ve done a lot of stupid things in your life, but this one takes the cake.”

He took a slow drag on his cigarette. “It’s nice to know you still care, Miss O’Brien.”

She scoffed. “They aren’t going to let you run home, I hope you know, when you decide you—that you’ve made a mistake.”

“I know,” he said.

“And if you decide to give up on working, next time some fancy man of yours gets killed, they won’t tiptoe around you for a week. They tie you to a post in no-man’s land, for the Huns to shoot at. That’s what they do.”

Did they really do that? “Wasn’t planning to.”

“I’m not lying to you,” she said. “Malingering, that’s what they’ll think. Or worse, if they decide it’s cowardice, they’ll shoot you themselves.” 

“I’m not a coward,” he said, automatically. 

“No,” she said, looking at him with what he was surprised to realize was pity. “I don’t suppose you are.”

She dropped her cigarette and walked off.

When they sat down to dinner, Anna squeezed his arm and asked, “Thomas—are you sure about this?”

Why did everyone keep asking that? “Yes,” he said, curtly. 

“I’m not saying it isn’t the right thing to do,” she said. “But wouldn’t it be better to wait a month or two? Until you’re more….” She trailed off. 

“Anna,” Bates said, from her other side. She turned to him, and Bates said something too quietly for Thomas to hear. 

When she turned back to Thomas, Anna had plastered on a smile, and said, “I’m sure you’ll do brilliantly.” 

“I’m sure he will,” added Mrs. Hughes. 

There was an awkward murmur of agreement, followed by an even more awkward silence, which was finally broken by Madge asking, “Will you be seeing Davy, do you think?”

Glad to talk about something other than whether or not it was a good idea for him to join up, Thomas answered at some length. “Well, I don’t know. Dr. Clarkson said he’d put in a word about having me posted near the local regiment, once I’m done training, but it’s a big war, and they could send me anywhere.”

“You don’t just go to the local regiment, automatically like?” asked Daisy, who was bringing more bread. 

“No—or not the training group I’m in, apparently. We’re meant as reinforcements, for the different units that need them.” Which was just as well, really. Peter had gone over with his training group, but he did make friends so easily. Had made friends easily. Thomas would probably be glad of a fresh start once his training was over. 

“Reinforcements?” said Daisy. “What does that mean? Is it, like….” She bit her lip.

Thomas hesitated, and Bates answered, “They could need men to fill in for any sort of reason—if someone got transferred, or promoted, for example.”

Daisy’s face cleared. “Oh, I see. Well, that’s all right, then.”

At the head of the table, Carson cleared his throat and introduced a new subject. 

When Thomas went out for his after-dinner cigarette, he wasn’t terribly surprised that Bates joined him. Bates, he was sure, would have an opinion about what he’d decided to do. 

He _was_ surprised when Bates took a cigarette, from the pack Thomas offered out of politeness. He must have smoked before—in his war, maybe—because he didn’t choke on it like Madge had. 

Without preamble, Bates said, “Well, it’s done now, so there’s no point second-guessing it.”

At least someone realized that. 

He went on, “Just—keep your head down and get through it, all right? Don’t do anything stupid.”

“I wasn’t planning to.”

Bates nodded. “And try not to be a complete tit to the men in your unit, all right? You want them watching your back.”

Thomas nodded. 

“You’re going to be bored, a lot of the time. If you’re lucky. Don’t go stirring up shit just to keep yourself entertained.”

Just before Thomas had left home, for his first job at Lady Waterstone’s, his Dad had attempted a sort of man-to-man talk. It had mostly been about wearing clean underwear and not stealing or seducing maids. He wasn’t sure why he was thinking of it now. “Right,” he said.

“And write to Anna. She’ll worry about you.”

#

“I hope you didn’t find Thomas’s news too depressing,” Cora said, as they were getting into bed.

“Why would I?” In fact, considering that just last week, Thomas had said that he considered joining the Army tantamount to suicide, Robert found it fairly unsettling. But Cora couldn’t know that; all he’d told anyone was that Thomas had been overwrought and Robert had sent him to rest.

“Because he’s going to the war, and you aren’t.” She looked at him with a sympathetic expression. 

Oh, that. “It’s to be expected,” he said. “All the young men are going. Matthew, Thomas, most of the outdoor staff. William and Branson will probably join up before long.”

“Let’s hope it’s all over before they have to,” she suggested.

Robert made a noncommittal noise. The War Office was being optimistic in its public statements, but in private, they were preparing for a long, hard slog. The spring offensives certainly hadn’t made much progress, and if anyone had new ideas for the summer ones, Robert hadn’t heard a whisper of it. 

#

The next day, Mrs. Hughes was in her sitting room, working on the household accounts, when Thomas knocked on the door. She greeted him with the warmest smile she could manage. Anna and the other girls had expressed doubts about his going into the Army, doubts that she shared, but there was no use voicing them now, when he couldn’t back out even if he wanted to. Instead, she simply asked if there was anything she could do to help.

“Yes, as a matter of fact,” he said. “I was wondering if it would be all right if I leave my trunk here. You’re only supposed to take what you can carry, you see. I’ll put it up in the attic, so it’s not in anyone’s way, and then…well, if I don’t come pick it up at war’s end, you can just get rid of it.”

He said it so matter-of-factly that Mrs. Hughes might not have noticed that what he was really saying was that he had no home where his belongings could be kept while he was away, nor anyone who’d care to collect them if he was killed. Might not have noticed, that is, if her attention hadn’t already been drawn to the fact when he’d been so lost in grief, and had nowhere to go where he’d be looked after. 

“Certainly,” she said. “But I hope you mean to write to us while you’re away, and not simply leave us to wonder how you’re faring until you turn up out of the blue when it’s all over.”

Thomas looked a little startled, but nodded. “Of course. If you’ll write back.” 

“I will,” she promised. “In fact, you’ll be doing me a favor to let me. Mrs. Patmore has her nephew, and Miss O’Brien her brother, but I’ve no one at the Front to worry over.”

“Well, we wouldn’t want you to be left out.” He managed something that looked almost like a smile. “You can even send me biscuits, if you really want to.”

“I’ll do that, as well,” she promised.

#

Thomas was in the pressing room, ironing his clothes before packing them away for the duration. It was a fairly pointless thing to do—they’d only get creased sitting in the trunk—but Carson hadn’t given him any work to do, and he might as well do something.

Anna came in. “Mrs. Hughes tells me you’re leaving your things here.”

He nodded. “There’s a tin box, with a lock on it, I keep my letters in.” He’d thought about burning them, but he couldn’t bear it. He’d decided to take the last one with him, folded up and tucked behind Peter’s photograph, in the new cigarette case he’d bought. “If I don’t come back for it, might be best just to chuck that away, unopened like.”

She nodded. “If you don’t come back…Thomas, I hope you don’t think I’m speaking out of turn.”

He raised an eyebrow. They’d already talked about how there was no point trying to convince him he’d made a mistake signing up.

“I know you never talk about your family.”

“That’s right; I don’t.”

“But if there’s anyone still living, I think you ought to let them know you’re going. Even if you’ve quarreled, even if they’ve…been unkind. In case you don’t come back. So they know, that if they want to mend fences, now’s the time to do it.”

Thomas sighed. “It’s not how you think. They don’t even know about…that.” He’d never told anyone this, apart from Peter. Now that Peter was dead, and didn’t know it anymore, perhaps someone else should know. “My mum’s dead, and ….”

“Oh,” said Anna.

“She was a lady’s maid, my mum. She was traveling the Continent, with the lady she worked for. The Grand Tour, you know. Went everywhere. France, Spain, Italy, Greece—she used to tell me bedtime stories about it.”

Anna nodded.

“The moment they got back, she quit her job, ran home, and married the man who’d asked her before she left.” He hesitated. “Four or five months later, I was born, weighing something close to eight pounds.”

“Oh,” Anna said again.

He nodded. “So I’ve always been a bit of a bastard. Dad wasn’t at all pleased, as you can imagine. I think he tried not to take it out on me.” Looking back, Thomas thought that. Growing up, he’d just hated him. “But he wasn’t very good at it.” Especially after Alice and Jamie had been born; before that, he might have just not liked kids. 

“Did you…know?” she asked.

“Not until I was about school-leaving age.” Before that, he’d only known that there was something about him that his father didn’t like. “Mum was dying then—cancer—so she had to tell me. So I’d understand why it wasn’t realistic to think I’d be taking over the shop from him one day.” 

It was that part of it that had hurt the most. He _loved_ the shop, loved the tick of the clocks, the felt trays Dad used to lay out the pieces when he took them apart, loved the way all the pieces inside fit together so neatly, like a jigsaw puzzle. Most of all, he’d loved the way that sometimes, when they were working quietly together, Dad would forget he didn’t like him. 

Jamie didn’t care at all about the shop, or clocks, and couldn’t be trusted to take apart even the simplest one without losing half a dozen pieces under the workbench. The idea that the shop would one day be his had felt _obscene_. 

“That was just too much to ask, you know. Especially when he had a son who was actually his.” He hurried away from the subject of the shop. “She never told me who he was—my actual father. I used to imagine him turning up, you know, like _Great Expectations_. But I imagine it was actually something fairly sordid.”

No Italian Count, certainly. Maybe the count’s valet, at best. At best, she’d been seduced and abandoned; at worst, assaulted. 

“So she died, I got a job in London, and a few months later he remarried. Alice, my sister—half sister—wrote to me for a while, but….” He shrugged. Dad and the new Mrs. Barrow started having kids, Alice and Jamie started calling her “Mum,” and nobody really needed to spell it out. “We just fell out of touch. So yeah, I’ve got a half-sister and a half-brother living—far as I know—but they probably barely remember I ever existed.”

Anna looked at him for a moment. “I still think you should at least consider writing to her,” she finally said. 

Thomas shrugged. “I don’t see the point.” Either she wouldn’t care, or if she did, it would just upset her. 

“Well,” she said. “You know best.”

“I don’t even know if she’s still living at home,” he added. “Or if she’s still called Barrow.” 

Though the shop wasn’t likely to have moved, and Dad—“Dad”—would know where she was. If he wanted to write to her, which he didn’t.

But when Thomas sat down to write letters to the people who’d want to know he’d joined up, after he’d finished ones for Theo and Reg and Joey, and a quick note to Lisel—she’d written back, with condolences, to his one about Peter—he found himself writing,

_Dear Alice,_

_Hope you’re well. It’s your brother Thomas, if you don’t recognize my writing anymore. How are you and everyone? I’m writing because I’ve joined up, and somebody I know pointed out that you might like to hear from me before I go. I report for training Tuesday, but I will be in England for at least a couple of months._

Thomas lit a cigarette and read over what he had written. It was all right, he decided. It didn’t make it sound like he was expecting anything, which he wasn’t. It might be a bit short, though, so he added,

_I’m going into the medical corps as a stretcher bearer, which I hear is hard work, but interesting and worthwhile. Lately I have been working as a footman, so it will be a big change._

That was probably enough. He was using small paper, so it took up most of the page. He considered how to sign it. Definitely not, “affectionately yours.” “Your brother” would have been good, but he’d already said that. 

Finally, he just wrote his name at the bottom and stuck it in the envelope. 

#

When Thomas got up from the servants’ hall table and unceremoniously went out for a cigarette, Anna, just as unceremoniously, went with him. It might very well be his last one—at least his last evening one—at Downton, since it was getting on for bedtime, and he was leaving in the morning. 

She’d been doing her best to keep a cheerful face on things, ever since Mr. Bates had explained to her that Thomas no longer had any choice about whether he went or not, having been sworn in. “The worst thing we could do right now is encourage any doubts he might be having,” Mr. Bates had said. 

He’d also said that, once Thomas was with his unit, they’d all encourage each other along. She hoped he was right, and that Thomas would let them. 

But now that it was her last chance, she allowed herself to say, “You will be careful, won’t you? Look out for yourself?” 

“When don’t I?” he asked, lightly. 

The last couple of weeks, for one—and that was why she worried. That he might not look out for himself, because he didn’t really want to. But she couldn’t say that. “I’ll write to you, all our news,” she said instead. “And you must tell me if there’s anything you’d like me to send.” She knew he’d sent large and frequent parcels to Peter, though exactly what had gone into them—besides the scarf he’d made at Christmas—was something of a mystery.

He nodded. “I’ll be all right.” He took a long pull from his cigarette. “I just couldn’t,” he said abruptly. “Go on as if everything was normal. It’ll be better to….”

“Make a clean break of it,” Anna suggested, when it seemed he wasn’t going to finish the thought.

“Yeah,” he said. “And…not to have to figure things out for myself. I’ll just go where they tell me to go, and do what they tell me to do. Keep me head down.”

That didn’t sound much like the Thomas she knew, but it did at least sound like he wasn’t planning to do anything reckless. “That’s probably best,” she agreed. “And it is the right thing, really. Joining up.” 

“They’d have got me before long, whether I wanted to go or not,” Thomas said. “This registration scheme they’re talking about, it’s the first step toward conscription. And you can bet ‘footman’ isn’t going to be considered an essential occupation.”

That hadn’t been precisely what she meant, but she nodded. “I suppose we women will be taking on more of the men’s work, with everyone going.”

Thomas huffed. “It’ll take more than a war for Carson to allow maids in the dining room,” he said. “You might want to learn to polish silver, though.”

“I expect I’ll be able to pick it up,” she said. “Madge has heard that some of the houses near here have got girls working in the gardens—and the stables, where they still have horses.”

Thomas gave her a skeptical look. 

“Mr. Basset won’t hear of it here,” she added, naming the head gardener. “Though apparently one or two have applied.” 

“Can’t really see that working out, either.”

Now it was her turn to give Thomas a skeptical look. “If a woman can carry a basketful of sopping-wet laundry, I expect she can manage a wheelbarrow and a spade.”

“Yes, but they haven’t got _lavatories_ out in the gardens,” he pointed out. “They just step behind a tree.”

Anna hadn’t thought of that. “Well, I imagine they can think of something.” 

Any other man, she reflected, would have talked around the subject, saying, at most, something about ladies’ “particular needs” or “modesty.” 

She really was going to miss him.

#

Thomas had wondered, a bit, if finding himself in situations that he recognized from Peter’s letters would keep Peter painfully in his thoughts. Fortunately, he found himself too busy and too tired to indulge in recollection much, and when something did remind him of Peter, it was with a sense that now he was coming to understand the last chapter of Peter’s life.

The only time he had a bit of a wobble was when a letter came, forwarded on from Downton, from Peter’s unit. It wasn’t his writing, but Thomas felt a stab of irrational hope, and his hands shook as he opened it. It read,

_Dear Thomas,_

_I wanted you to know how G-d damn sorry we all are about your brother. He was one of the best of us, and we’re all gutted._

_He had a lot of friends in our outfit, and I had the honor of being one of them. Without him, I would have found the Army a much lonelier place. I happen to be a Jew, you see, and while most of the others were willing to overlook this deficiency as long as I didn’t draw attention to it, Fitz was the first who didn’t seem to find it embarrassing if I happened to mention, for instance, a holiday or my father’s profession. (He is a sort of clergyman in our faith.) His easy acceptance was not only a comfort to me, but, him being such a popular fellow, led the others to accept me too._

_One of the best things about him was the way that he could make the best of even the most rotten situation. He wouldn’t pretend there was nothing wrong—that sort of false cheer is so irritating, in the conditions we’re in—but he’d find the right thing to say to help us through it. When we were first started out in the wards at General 11, he would often say, “We’ll never have to do that for the first time again.” I still say it to myself. _

_I was also with him on the Albion, and I can tell you that he died very bravely. He made it to the rescue boat several times, carrying stretcher cases, but each time he went back for another. We all knew that the ship was going down quickly, and some of the others made excuses to linger, once they’d reached safety, but not Fitz. We had no time to talk then, you understand, but I’m sure that if we had, he would have said, as he so often did when we drew a rotten assignment, that someone had to do it, and there was no particular reason it shouldn’t be us. (We still say that, too.)_

_In my faith, instead of saying “may he rest in peace,” we say, “may his memory be a blessing.” Fitz’s memory is a blessing to me, and to all of us here, as I’m sure it is to you._

_Sincerely yours,_

_Issac Shapiro_

His eyes stinging at his throat aching, Thomas tucked the letter behind the photograph in his cigarette-case, and shoved the lot deep into his pack. The next time he wanted a cigarette, he walked over to the YMCA hut and bought new ones. 

As Peter had said, the first weeks were taken up mainly in marching, calisthenics, and drill. He’d been a bit hesitant about the latter—being ordered about like a dog seemed a bit humiliating, in principle—but when the time came, he found he didn’t mind it. You sort of switched your mind off, becoming an anonymous piece in a machine made up of men’s bodies. In a way, it was almost relaxing. And the level of precision required reminded him of nothing so much as serving in the dining room, with Carson watching for the slightest misstep. 

The shouting did require a bit of getting used to, but it wasn’t all bad, having what you’d done wrong shouted out at the moment you did it—it certainly beat having Carson standing across the room trying to communicate the nature of your sin through eyebrows alone. And with so many of you, the sergeants didn’t seem to have time to hold routine mistakes against you; unless you’d managed a really spectacular cock-up, it was forgotten almost as soon as you’d done it. 

Some things were different from what Peter had described. They trained mostly in platoons of fifty, but were housed in sections of about a dozen, in small bell-shaped tents, that reminded Thomas of pictures he’d seen of Red Indian teepees. There wasn’t much barracks-cleaning to do, because they slept rolled up in their groundsheets and blankets; all you had to do in the morning was roll everything up neatly. 

As Bates had advised, Thomas kept his head down and didn’t make trouble for himself. When, early on, the section had started talking about why they’d joined up, Thomas had trotted out the story about his brother on the _Albion_ , since it had seemed to go over well before. The other blokes were suitably solemn and impressed about it, and once in a while Thomas explained something that they were wondering about by saying “My brother said that once you’re at the Front….”

He didn’t say it often, though. He didn’t want to be like Maud, boring everyone with stories about his brother all the time. Most of the conversations he had with his section-mates consisted mainly of him nodding and saying things like, “Too right” or “Bloody typical.” 

Thomas knew that he wasn’t making friends—which was fine; he didn’t want to—but he didn’t entirely realize that he hadn’t made any _enemies_ , either, until the day came when his section got an evening pass, and he found himself swept along to the pub along with everyone else—excepting the section’s three Methodists, of course. No one precisely invited him to join them; it was more that it didn’t seem to occur to anyone that he _wouldn’t_ go along.

Around the same time, he heard one of his tent-mates say to a bloke in another section, “Oh, that’s just Barrow—bit quiet, but ’e’s awright.” 

It wasn’t a way Thomas had ever thought of himself before, but he supposed it was an improvement on “bit of a bastard” or even “haughty ice-prince.” And it wasn’t a difficult reputation to live up to; all he had to do was shoulder his fair share of whatever unpleasantness was going around—with silent thanks to Peter, for pointing out the importance of this quality. You could even complain a bit, without anyone looking at you like you were a dog that had just soiled the carpet, as long as you complained while getting on with it, and there were no officers in earshot.

No proper commissioned officers, that is—the kind that wore tailored uniforms and got called “sir.” The non-commissioned ones, the sergeants and corporals, were working-class blokes like the rest of them, and you could complain, smoke, and even swear in front of them, as long as you weren’t actually on parade or something like that. 

An even bigger surprise than his mates’ easy acceptance of him was that the NCO’s didn’t seem to have found anything about him to particularly dislike, either. In fact, the second time they went out on maneuvers, he was picked to act as corporal, and lead his section. This particular role was a bit less of a pretense than some of the others parts there were to play on maneuvers, as you did really have to report to the sergeant in charge about your section, relay the orders back to them, and say who was supposed to do what as you went about accomplishing whatever it was you’d been told to do. 

The first job they had, once they’d marched to the designated location, was setting up a surgery tent. Thomas half-expected, when he started ordering the others about, that they’d double over laughing or ask him what the fuck he thought he was playing at, but instead, they all just did what he’d told them—including the bloke who’d been lance-corporal last time, and who Thomas thought might be out for his blood. Even when he had to point out that they’d got the instrument cabinets in the wrong order, nobody gave him any back-chat about it, just swapped them around. 

When they got back from maneuvers, he wrote as much to Anna, and she wrote back,

_June 17, 1915_

_Dear Thomas,_

_I’m glad to hear that you’re doing so well. I don’t know why you’re surprised about being lance-corporal—you’ve been first footman for years, so you have leadership experience. Mr. Bates says you’re right that they try out different people in the position, so you shouldn’t expect to necessarily have it again next time, but they don’t give everyone a turn, so they must have had a reason to think you were suited for it. Everyone here is very proud of you. (William asked me to say that he feels sorry for the men in your section, but he’s only joking.)_

_The enclosed letter came here for you. I’m not sure who it’s from, but I thought we’d better send it on. I hope it isn’t any sort of bad news._

_Love,_

_Anna Smith_

He still wasn’t used to getting letters from people who signed their full names, as if they didn’t care at all who knew that they had written them. 

The enclosed envelope bore unfamiliar handwriting, and he opened it with a sense of unease. It said.

_Dear Thomas,_

_I hope that this manages to reach you, as you will have left for training by now. I’m sorry I didn’t write sooner; when your letter came, things were rather busy here. Jamie and Alf, my husband, were both getting ready to leave for training as well. They joined the Sheffield Pals, so it was both of them leaving at the same time. (Jamie likes to be called Jim, now he’s all grown up.)_

_We’re all very proud of you for joining up, as well. Mum and the younger ones send their love, and Dad says that if you make it back on leave before you go to France, you ought to come by the shop and he’ll clean your watch for you._

_Do you suppose you will make it back? You could come round for tea at Alf’s and my flat, if you don’t feel up to facing the whole crowd at home. You’d be able to meet your niece, Rosie. She’s two years old, and she’s got black hair like yours, but in curls. We also think she’s going to grow up to be clever, like you always were._

_But if you don’t have time to visit, we will understand._

_Love,_

_Alice (Barrow) Wiggins_

Bloody hell—what was he supposed to say to that? He’d nearly forgotten that he’d written to his sister, back before he left. 

He stuffed the letter at the bottom of his pack, but as the ending to their training period grew near, he supposed he had better come up with some kind of an answer. Finally, he wrote,

_Dear Alice,_

_I’m quite chuffed to hear I’ve got a niece._

That was true enough, though he’d be very surprised if she actually resembled him at all. The rest of the family had all been sandy-haired and a bit ruddy. If her coloring was different, it must have come from her father—it certainly couldn’t have come from Thomas’s.

_Ta for the invitation to tea, but I doubt I’ll make it up to Sheffield. My training camp is near London, and rumor has it that we will be leaving in a couple of weeks. You can tell Dad that I’ve been looking after my watch the way he showed me, and give my best to Mrs. Barrow and the little ones._

He supposed they weren’t so little anymore; the eldest had been born a scant but technically respectable year after Mum died—his and Alice and Jamie’s actual Mum—but he wasn’t at all sure how many there were, much less what their names and ages and sexes might have been. He hadn’t really kept track even while Alice had been writing him about them, as they were no real relations of his, anyway, and Mrs. Barrow could very well have had more since. 

_I’m doing fairly well in training. I will keep an eye out for Jamie and Alf if I run into the Sheffield Pals._

Not that he’d recognized either of them—particularly Alf, since he’d never laid eyes on him—but it seemed like the sort of thing you were supposed to say. He signed off,

_Thomas_

#

“Well, there’s a surprise,” said Anna. “That letter Thomas got, it was from his sister.”

“I didn’t know he had one,” Mr. Bates answered. They were sitting in the servants’ hall after lunch. 

“They hadn’t spoken in quite some time,” she explained. “I told him I thought he ought to write to her, tell her that he’d joined up. It didn’t sound like he thought much of the idea, but he must have done it.”

“I hope it was a nice letter,” Mr. Bates said.

“It sounds like it was—‘a couple of lines of nonsense about being proud of me for joining up,’ he says,” she read from the letter. That probably meant it was a perfectly ordinary, polite letter. “And he’s an uncle. ‘I don’t suppose I have to send a christening present, as she’s two years old,’ he says.” 

“Makes you wonder if she had his address here,” Mr. Bates noted—picking up, as she did, Thomas’s irritation at not having been told this news earlier. 

It wouldn’t surprise Anna one bit to learn that she hadn’t, and that Thomas had completely overlooked that fact. 

“I’m glad he listened to you,” Mr. Bates added. “As everyone should.” He sighed. “I do worry about him.”

Anna did, too. “It sounds like he’s doing well,” she suggested. He could be—and probably was—putting a brave face on things, but she didn’t think he’d be capable of writing such ordinary-sounded letters if he was still overwhelmed by his grief. Not that he’d write her about his grief, either—he’d just not write at all. 

“When he gets over there, he’s going to need to be sharp. Do you ever wonder if he….”

Mr. Bates trailed off without saying anything revealing, but Anna suspected she knew what he was asking. She’d thought it herself. You didn’t have to be Dr. Freud to realize that Thomas had joined up in order to, in some way, go where Mr. Fitzroy had gone.

It was just a matter of which way he had in mind. Experiencing what Mr. Fitzroy had experienced, or something more final.

Answering the un-asked question, Anna said, “Before he left, he said something about not being able to go on as before. I hope he meant that he had to make a change, so that he could go on.” 

Bates nodded. “Perhaps he did.”

#

Thomas really wasn’t sure what he was doing here, even as he pushed open the door to the tea-shop. He probably wouldn’t even recognize Alice, nor she him. 

She’d written, in response to his second letter, asking if she could come and see him one Sunday, if he couldn’t get away. Thomas had written back, quite truthfully, that he could put in for a Sunday pass, but you didn’t hear until Saturday afternoon whether you’d gotten one or not, so there wasn’t much point in making a long journey.

He hadn’t said that quite a few of the others in his section had had a wife, mother, or girlfriend come down only to spend the afternoon drinking tea alone while the bloke they’d come to see was kept busy doing drill or on fatigues. Perhaps he should have, because she’d written back saying he should put in for one for the next Sunday hence. He’d done so, figuring it would serve her right if she came all this way for nothing, but when the pass-list was read out, his name had been on it. 

The others had chaffed him a bit about having a secret girlfriend, but had gone quiet when he said it was only his sister. It wasn’t until later that he’d realized they’d assumed, quite naturally, that his sister was also the sister of his brother who’d gone down on the _Albion_. 

Rumor had it that they might start receiving their assignments to France as soon as next week, which—if it had been as they thought—would give Alice quite a bit to be worried about.

The bell on the shop-door clanged, and a dozen women in Sunday-best frocks and hats looked up. The place was open on Sundays largely for this very purpose—a respectable place for female relatives to visit men on passes from the training camps. 

Most of their eyes passed over him and back to their cups of tea in disappointment, but one woman, dressed in a dowdy brown suit and holding an infant on her lap, half-stood, beckoning with her free hand. 

It was Alice, and if he mentally subtracted the rather dated hat, she looked just as she had when she’d been ten years old and playing with dolls, the last time he’d seen her.

“Thomas,” she said. “My goodness, you’ve gotten tall.”

“That usually happens,” he pointed out, sitting on one of the spindly chairs the establishment provided. 

“I suppose it does. Rosie, darling,” she said to the child, “this is your Uncle Thomas.”

She looked at him, wide-eyed, and stuffed several fingers into her mouth. She did, as advertised, have curly black hair. 

“Hello, you,” Thomas said. 

He was saved from having to come up with anything else to say to her by the waitress coming over and taking his order for a cup of tea and a piece of cake. 

He imagined Peter saying, _well, if it’s awful, at least you’ll have gotten a piece of cake out of it._

“So,” Alice said, once the waitress had gone. “What have you been up to? Before all this, I mean,” she added, gesturing to his uniform.

“I was a footman,” he said. “To the Earl of Grantham.”

“Oh,” she said. “Is he very important, then?”

Thomas shrugged. “I’m sure he thinks he is. He owns a big house, anyway.”

“In London?”

That’s right, the last time he’d written to her, he’d still been in London. “Yorkshire. It’s near Ripon.” She’d likely not have heard of Downton Village, or even Thirsk—neither was very near Sheffield—but she might know Ripon. 

“Oh,” she said again. “I suppose they must keep you very busy.”

“Depends what’s going on. If they’re giving a party, certainly.” The waitress came back with his tea, and he took a sip. Definitely better than Army tea, which he now understood Peter’s feelings about. “What about you? I mean, what line of work is Alf in, normally?”

“He’s a foreman at the button factory,” she answered. “And I’m working there now. We do buttons for uniform shirts, so it’s war-work, as well as freeing a man for the Front. That’s why I could only come on a Sunday. I work the other days.”

“Do you like it?” Thomas asked.

“It’s harder work than I thought,” she said. “And I don’t like leaving Rosie. But Mum and Bel look after her.”

“Bel?” Was he supposed to know who that was?

“Belinda,” she said. “Your half-sister.”

“ _Your_ half-sister,” he said. 

She drew in her breath sharply. “Let’s not quarrel about that.”

“There’s nothing to quarrel about. She’s not my sister. It’s a fact.”

Alice sighed, poking a bit of biscuit into Rosie’s mouth. “Dad never meant you had to leave right away, when our Mum died. Nor that you couldn’t come back and see us.”

“I know what he meant.” It was time for Thomas to be thinking about finding his own way, he’d said, and he was right; it had been time. 

“It was hard for him too,” she said. 

“Which part? Mum dying, or pretending he was my father for fourteen years?”

Rosie started to whimper, and for a moment Alice was entirely absorbed in dangling a rag dolly in front of her. When the baby finally began to chew on it, she said, “Try to think of it from his side. He was very hurt by what Mum did. He knew it wasn’t your fault, but….”

“Of course it wasn’t.”

“But you were a reminder of it, that’s all. He said, when I told him I was coming down here to see you, he said that he mightn’t have minded giving you his name, if she had just told him. Let him _decide_ , instead of being tricked into it.”

His name, maybe, but not the shop. “That’s still nothing to do with me.”

“No,” she agreed. “But do you really think you could do any better? If the woman you loved agreed to marry you, and then you found out she was,” she lowered her voice, “having someone else’s child?”

He wasn’t ever going to be in a position to find out, but he couldn’t tell her why. 

But then, he thought, what if a French peasant woman turned up on his doorstep, with a baby Peter had fathered through some ill-advised experiment. That was scarcely any more likely than the other scenario, but if it did happen, he’d love the baby because it was Peter’s. “You know what? I think I could, yeah.”

“Well, bully for you. I doubt I could.” The waitress appeared, asking if they wanted more tea. Alice said that they did, and when she’d gone, went on, “I’m not saying that he couldn’t have put it to you better. But he did try.”

“Bully for him,” Thomas echoed. They were never going to see eye to eye on the subject of Dad; he wished she hadn’t brought it up. “Look. Does Mrs. Barrow treat you the same way she does her own kids?”

“Of course not, and I wouldn’t expect her to.”

“Imagine you don’t know why.”

“Oh.” She smoothed Rosie’s hair. “But didn’t Mum _explain_ it?”

“Yes, after _fourteen years_.”

She looked puzzled. “But it wasn’t until after she died, that Dad said, about the shop and you starting to think about some other kind of job.”

Had she really thought that was _it_? “I knew something was wrong long before that.” He could be certain he had, and that he wasn’t just remembering things differently in light of what he knew now, because before Mum had told him, he’d been starting to figure out that he was queer, and he’d thought that might be it. That Dad had sensed it somehow. “Don’t you remember?”

“Remember what?” The waitress came back with the tea; once she’d poured it and left, Alice said, “I suppose he didn’t play with you like he did us, but you were older.”

Two years older than her. And from the time he’d been about seven, he could remember being the age she was, and that Dad hadn’t liked him then, either. “Didn’t play with me, was always too busy when I wanted something, always came down harder on me—even if we’d all got in trouble together. He didn’t even talk to me more than he had to.”

“You were always closer to Mum,” Alice said. 

Thomas snapped, “And why do you think that is?” He shook his head. “He treated you two like you were his kids, and me like I was some neighbor’s child he wished would go home. It was a relief to finally find out why.” Except that understanding it hadn’t been anything he’d done had meant there wasn’t anything he could do to fix it, either. “I don’t hate him for it anymore, but that’s as far as I’ll go.”

“I didn’t know you ever had hated him,” Alice said, in a small voice.

“He does.” Thomas had told him, before he’d left. “You can tell him I don’t anymore, if you like.”

“All right,” she said. 

“Now—is there something else we can talk about? Tell me about the button factory,” he suggested.

“It’s not very interesting, I’m afraid. I work in the packing department, so what I mainly do is take a dozen buttons and put them in a box….” 

She went on talking about the button factory at some length, and she was right that it wasn’t very interesting, but it beat talking about their childhood. In return, he told her some not-very-interesting things about their routine in camp—the most interesting things being not entirely suitable. 

When they’d finished their tea and were getting ready to leave, Alice said, “Will you write me, with where to reach you in France?”

“I suppose,” Thomas said. “If you like.”

“I would. We shouldn’t fall out of touch again.”

Thomas wouldn’t go that far, but didn’t argue, and let Alice hug him. After that, Rosie wanted to hug him too—he wasn’t sure why, since all she’d done was look at him warily while he argued with her mother—so he allowed that too. “It was nice meeting you, Miss Rosie,” he said, as he put her back into Alice’s arms. 

She babbled something back at him, and then waved at him over Alice’s shoulder until they were quite out of sight.


	5. Interlude:  The Peter Letters, Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At war's end, Thomas will come into possession of a small, hand-written book. Here are some of its contents.

_4 May, 1915_

_Dear Thomas,_

_I don’t know when I will have a chance to send this letter—or if I will manage to hang on to it until then—but it’s comforting to write to you, just the same. I know how worried you must be—but really, I’m not so badly off, as you will see._

_I imagine you’ve heard about the_ Albion _. One of the Jerries told us that they picked up some of the wireless traffic from our Channel ships—that’s why they came back, in fact. But I’m getting ahead of myself._

_It was my second round-trip, and this time we were taking wounded to…well, maybe I should say. I don’t know who is going to be censoring this. A different port than last time. About mid-day, the ship gave a great lurch, and everything started tilting towards one side. Some of the crew started shouting that we’d been torpedoed. (The Germans dispute this—I’ll explain when I get to that part.) We all started rushing around putting life-belts on the patients and getting them up on deck: everyone was splendid, the boat-crew and even the more lightly-wounded patients helping with the stretcher-cases, but there were still a lot more of those than there were people to carry them. _

_Luckily, there was a boat nearby to help us—a coal-carrier, I think—and once we’d given them the idea of how to load up the stretcher cases, they took over that part, freeing us to go back down below for more patients. By that point, water was starting to come in on the ward-decks, so we had some fairly dreadful decisions to make—do you grab the closest case, or the one who’s conscious and begging for someone to come and help him? We did a bit of both._

_We’d got about half of them out, and I was carrying a stretcher with a chest case on it, with one of our MO’s holding up the other end, when something somewhere in the ship gave way, and we were knocked off our feet by a great rush of water._

_I saw a couple of the others drop their stretchers and swim for it—I don’t blame them. But the MO, Capt. Kelly, held on to ours, so I felt like I had to, too._

_The next bit was all confusion—I know that we, and the ship, were going down, but it felt like the water was rising up, instead, coming out of nowhere. Somehow, Capt. Kelly, the stretcher case, and I ended up in an upper corner of what was no longer the ship, but the wreckage, and the water stopped coming up while we still had a bubble of air. _

_Capt. Kelly was able to figure out where we were, in relation to the rest of the ship as it originally had been, and he said, if we didn’t get too disoriented, and could hold our breaths long enough, we might be able to swim our way out. And then he looked at the chest case. (I don’t know his name, but I suppose it will have been in the paper, along with all the others.)_

_The man was conscious, and he said, “I think it’s every man for himself now, chaps.” We saluted him—Captain Kelly first, even though the bloke was only a Lieutenant—and we left, God help us._

_I don’t remember how I made it out. I remember being in that pocket, below-decks, and I remember bobbing about on top of the sea for a bit—we had our life-belts on. Every now and then, a corpse would bob up to the top, with its life-belt on. It was cold, unbelievably cold at first, and then you start to feel warm, which is really your extremities going numb. And then, I suppose, you pass out._

_When I came round, I was underwater again, in the infirmary of a U-Boat. It was late, the night watch, and they had a corporal or something keeping an eye on me. He knew about ten words of English, but he managed to get across that I’d been captured, and someone else with me, and then he spoon-fed me hot soup._

_Once he was done with that, he left for a bit, and came back with Captain Kelly. The Capt. Was dressed in a German officer’s uniform, which gave me a bit of a turn, at first, thinking he might have been a spy or something, but one of the Germans had lent it to him, his own things being soaked with salt-water. (I’m wearing a German sailor’s uniform as I write this—we’ve carefully removed their badges and insignia, and replaced them with our own. They’re going to try and wash our things, somehow, before handing us over to the proper authorities in Germany, but supplies of fresh water are limited.)_

_The captain of the boat—Glucker, or something that sounds like that—speaks English, so Capt. K had a pretty good picture of what had happened, from their point of view. They say that they did not torpedo our ship; it struck a mine, which they had laid a short while before. (Apparently, when it comes to the Hague Rules, this is an important distinction.) A number of civilian ships were broadcasting their outrage, in the clear, that the Hun had sunk a hospital ship, so the Capt. G. ordered the boat back around, to see if it was true. They checked all the bodies they could find, they said, and Capt. K. and I were the only ones living, so they brought us aboard. We are, of course, prisoners now, but they are most dreadfully sorry about the whole thing, and doing their best to make us comfortable._

_Capt. K also tells me that, according to Capt. G., the rescue ship, the collier, hit another mine later on and went down as well, so we don’t know how many of the patients we managed to get aboard survived the second sinking—or how many of the other doctors and corpsmen._

_I really am completely fine—I’m not sure that I can completely believe in the sincerity of the Germans’ regret, when after all, they continue to lay mines in the Channel even as we speak, but they certainly bear us no personal ill-will, and are anxious to ease the lesser inconveniences that have resulted from their doing what they see as their duty. One of the sailors has given up his bunk for me—I write from there—and others have given generously from their personal stocks of cigarettes, clean socks, and other essentials. (Capt. K, I hear, occupies the first lieutenant’s quarters, and dines with Capt. G. I eat in the NCOs’ mess, and in addition have been shared delicacies from several men’s parcels from home.)_

_They cannot, of course, allow us to post letters—actually, they can’t post their own, either, as we’re underwater—or transmit news of our safety on the wireless, but they assure us that word will make it back to our families, though it must go from the German High Command to the Red Cross, then to our War Office before finally reaching you. And Capt. K. tells me that, once we are in an official prisoner of war camp, the Red Cross will post letters for us._

_When I asked for writing paper anyway, the Lt. gave me a rather nice little pocket diary, in which I am writing this, indicating by gestures that I was to consider it a present, so I will simply keep writing until I have an opportunity of sending it._

_We’re not sure what will happen to us once we get to Germany, but for right now, things are probably worse for you than they are for me. After all, I know that I’m fine! I hate to think of you worrying over me, although I’m sure you will have been doing so since you heard of the sinking. I suppose you may even have been notified already that I’m on the missing list—as I will be, until the news of our rescue/capture gets back to England._

_Chin up, and do light a cigarette for me! (We can only smoke here when the boat surfaces to take on air.)_

_Your Peter_

_6 May, 1915_

_Dear Thomas,_

_Spent the morning in the infirmary, helping Capt. K. examine the Germans’ rashes and coughs and so on. (They haven’t a medical officer, just an NCO with a bit of first aid training, and the infirmary is what you or I might mistake for a store-cupboard with some bandages and ointment in it.) It’s only little things that have got to be checked out sometime—but I’m not sure how I feel about it, as they are, strictly speaking, the enemy._

_Capt. K tells me that it’s his duty as a doctor to treat the patients who are in front of him, enemy or not—though if something happens which would, without his aid, require them to cut their patrol short, he will have a very difficult decision to make. As for me, he says, the Germans are within their rights to put me to work at anything which doesn’t directly help the war effort. I am unsure if this qualifies—when I worked on Sick Calls at our own aid stations, I certainly thought I was helping the war effort—but I suppose it’s best to go along. (Capt. K. also told me to consider it an order, if that made me feel better about it. I’m not sure whether it does, exactly.)_

_What does make me feel better about it is that the German sailors are no happier to be fighting this war than our own men are. I suppose their High Command must feel differently—otherwise we wouldn’t be doing it—but the ones here are all ordinary blokes like you could have a pint with, and would much rather be doing something else. (One helped me try to dry out the photographs from my cigarette case—not too successfully, I’m afraid—and showed me his photographs of his girlfriend and sisters.)_

_I am picking up a bit of German trying to talk to them. I can say, for instance, “Ich vermisse mein Bruder,” which is that I miss my brother. “I can hardly stand it that my brother and my sweetheart may not know I am alive,” is beyond my skill in German, although I think I have managed to get the sentiment across._

_8 May_

_Mines laid by “our” U-Boat have sunk another British ship. A battleship, this time, so they aren’t sorry, but out of politeness are trying not to seem too pleased with themselves. Ugh. I think I will go to my bunk and pull the blanket over my head._

_9 May_

_Still feeling very low today._

_12 May_

_Today is the birthday of one of the sailors—he’s 19. His mother sent a cake along with him, when he shipped out, which he has been keeping in the locker under his bunk for this occasion. We all had a piece, and the NCO issued a rum ration—or whatever it is they get; it tastes no more like rum, or anything else on Earth, than our own rum rations do. It’s certainly alcoholic, though, and there has been a great deal of singing._

_We did just the same, back in France, when Jonesy turned 20. (I don’t remember whether I wrote to you about that or not. He was the “baby” of our section at the time, as Fritz—that’s really his name—is the youngest on this boat.) No rum ration, but we “organized” a bottle of wine, and he shared out his cake from home._

_He was killed doing stretcher-duty at the Front, a month or two later. I wonder if Fritz will make it through the war. I wonder if I want him to._

_Mostly, I wonder what we’re all doing here. I felt much the same when I was working on the prisoners’ ward back at the 11 th General—that these men are no different from us, and don’t want to kill us any more than we want to kill them—but there is a great deal more time to think about it, now that I am the prisoner. _

_We’re surfacing; I’m going to go up for a cigarette. Light one for me._

_Later_

_No cigarette, as when we attempted to surface, a British ship spotted us an opened fire. We submerged again immediately, and beat a hasty retreat. From what I gather, U-Boats carry either mines or torpedoes, not both, so there was no question of engaging it directly—fortunately for us! _

_The corporal told me it was a shame it all happened so quickly; if we’d been up there smoking and saw it coming, he could have looked the other way while I jumped overboard. (At least, I think that’s what he was saying. I now know slightly more German than he does English, but we still communicate mostly in pantomime.)_

_I really think, if we put a half-dozen from our War Office, and a half-dozen from theirs, on the same U-Boat, and had one of the neutral countries take the occasional shot at them, the war really would be over by Christmas. (Last Christmas? This Christmas? I don’t know.)_

_14 May_

_Apparently, we have been making our way back to Germany for some time now, and will be there tomorrow or the next day. The Germans say that they will be sorry to see us go, and are loading us up with presents of cigarettes, food, socks, etc. I think that I will miss them, too._

_Capt. K tells me that, while officers and men are usually sent to separate prisoner camps, officers are often allowed to have a batman, especially if captured together. Capt. G. tells him that conditions are better in the officers’ camps—men are often put to very hard labor, mining and farm labor and so forth—so he will do his best to keep me with him. He also says that Capt. G. has promised to put in a good word for us, that we were cooperative prisoners, as well as noncombatants, and helped their sick while on patrol, which may give us some advantage._

_I’ve just been told that there is a farewell party in my honor being gotten up in the NCOs’ mess, with rum issue, so I will close and go join in. Light a cigarette for me._

_22 May_

_Please excuse my handwriting—I am writing from a freight car, rattling across German rails, bound for what we all hope is an officers’ camp. (Capt. K. has succeeded in keeping me with him, so far.) We have been marched from one transit camp to another, starting at a port city which we were not allowed to know the name of, for the last week. We miss “our” U-Boat crew already, and the presents we had from them have made us very popular with the rest of the group, as rations are poor, and issued infrequently._

_Today, for instance, we rose at dawn and breakfasted on water, which had to nourish us as we marched three or four hours to the railhead, and then for the first stage of our journey by rail. At about tea-time, four loaves of bread were tossed into the car, which holds about forty of us. I doubt we shall get anything else before tomorrow, at the earliest._

_What we do get is scrupulously divided among us, officers and men alike. Most of the group are officers, with three other tag-alongs like myself. In fact, a couple of subalterns even went so far as to suggest that we four get larger portions than the officers—I think they must read too many Boys’ Own stories. (I’d probably have agreed to it, though, if the senior man—a Regular Army Sergeant—hadn’t been so obviously insulted by the suggestion.)_

_The other three men have all been assigned duties—sanitation, watch, and food distribution—but I am excused due to injury. My boots, after their lengthy immersion in salt water, were in no shape to hold up to a week’s forced march, and gave their last on this morning’s march. I’ve no idea what I’ll do if we have another march at the end of the rail journey, as I’m limping already._

_I’m also being driven half-crazy by itching. I was glad to get back into a British uniform when we left the U-Boat, but it turns out our crew’s efforts to wash it were not particularly successful, and the cloth is stiff with salt. (I would be in much worse shape, if I were not wearing German underwear and socks, let me tell you!) There has not been a rest long enough for me to have a go at washing it again until now, on the train, and here we have no spare water—they gave us a bucketful when we got on, and two more with the bread, but that’s it, and of the latter, Capt. K. commandeered half a bucketful for the washing of wounds, including my feet._

_We’ve been shown no violence, or even serious discourtesy, although some of the officers report rougher treatment before joining our current group. There is one NCO among our current guard who is clearly enjoying his authority, but I think that is a matter of the others being officers, rather than British! He has been fairly polite to us four enlisted men—in fact, he asked me through gestures if I had extra socks when my boots fell apart (which I did) —and also to the two noncombatant officers, Capt. K. and an R.C. chaplain, who apparently came to be captured while conducting Last Rites in a shell-hole. _

_(Our chief entertainment is telling our capture-stories; Capt. K’s and mine is considered quite good, on a par with that of the chaplain.)_

_It’s getting dark now, so I should finish. Light a cigarette for me, dearest._

_23 May_

_Arrived at Officers’ Camp late last night—fortunately, only a mile’s walk from train station. Food on the train was the same as the day before, and we arrived after dinner, but the prisoners regularly receive food parcels—both from their own people at home and from the Red Cross—and decent spreads were laid on in both the orderlies’ mess and the officers’ one. (There are many more officers here than men—about 400 of them, and about 80 of us, so I am pretty lucky that Capt. K was able to wangle my being here.)_

_At present, I am still not assigned any duties, on account of my feet, though it is assumed that both Capt. K. and I will be posted to the infirmary once we’ve settled in. My feet are a bit worse than last time I wrote, as a result of walking here, but Capt. K. was able to locate some disinfectant and bandages, and expects they will heal up fine. A Maj. Who recently got a nice pair of carpet slippers in a parcel has insisted that I have them, at least until either the Germans or the Red Cross comes through with a pair of boots._

_24 May_

_Still no duties, so I have plenty of time to write you a nice long letter!_

_I don’t suppose you have any idea what a prisoners of war camp is like—I didn’t either! They don’t lock us in cells or anything. The camp used to be a girls’ boarding school, I believe, and is surrounded by a high stone wall. Between morning and evening roll-calls, the prisoners are more or less at liberty to roam the buildings and grounds, except for a forbidden zone of about five feet along the inside of the wall, and a bit more around the guard-posts. At night, we are required to remain inside the main building, but otherwise not restricted. The Germans also leave it up to our officers to assign quarters, decide which common rooms are for officers and which for enlisted, and so forth._

_The population, by the way, includes both English and French prisoners, but those who have been here the longest have decided that we’ll divide ourselves only into officers and other ranks, and not by nationality. “Our” R.C. Padre has been warmly welcomed by the French: there was already a C of E chaplain here, but if any of their own chaplains have been captured yet, they’re keeping them somewhere else, so they’ve had to make the uncomfortable choice between worshipping under an chaplain who is an ally, but of a different faith, or of their own faith, but German._

_Apart from medics and chaplains, the officers here do not have very much to do, and occupy themselves mainly with reading and games—cards, cricket, etc.—and committees. There is a disciplinary committee (for matters not serious enough to draw the attention of the Germans, a parcels committee (which ensures that the parcels from Red Cross and other charitable organizations are distributed fairly, and keep track of who gets parcels from home, so that the contents of charity parcels are distributed to those who haven’t had one in a while), a recreation committee (which organizes games and entertainments—apparently there is a talent show in the offing), a sanitation committee, a complaints committee (which hears all complaints from everyone, and determines which to pass along to the Germans and to the Red Cross), and several others._

_We enlisted do laundry, tidy up after the officers, distribute their rations, cook what they get in their parcels, etc. ( I say “we,” but I have not actually done any work yet, apart from a bit of mending on Capt. K’s uniform, which has held up quite a bit better than mine!) The gentlemen of the Parcels Committee have taken responsibility for ensuring that I am not left naked when it finally disintegrates; I appreciate their concern, but have my suspicions that if a no-nonsense NCO were put in charge of the project, it might be handled a bit more efficiently._

_Official rations are quite poor, consisting mostly of bread, potatoes, and soup made out of barley and turnips, but we’re swimming in parcels, and many of the officers get money sent to them and can buy extra food, either directly from the guards or on supervised walks into town. (We enlisted are allowed to have money sent to us, but buy the time it’s been converted into German marks, any amount we’re likely to get doesn’t buy much at inflated war-time prices—so when you do finally read this, don’t bother sending money!)_

_29 May_

_Tomorrow, Sunday, is Red Cross day! They come with the parcels, and collect our letters, after church. With any luck, you will be reading this soon. I’m so glad—it will take a long time for your reply to get back to me, but just knowing that you will read what I’ve written eases the pain of missing you._

_I hope that what I’ve written is reassuring to you—I’m fairly sure that you will have been picturing much worse! The period between the U-Boat and this camp was not much fun, but now that I am here, the worst part, once again, is thinking about how worried you must be. Really, I am quite all right—even my feet are much better now._

_I have no particular idea where I am—and probably wouldn’t be allowed to tell you if I did—but the air is fresh, I can hear no sound of guns, and there are trees and mountains visible over the wall, so all in all, this is probably a safer and more healthful spot to spend the war than anywhere I’ve been since Oxfordshire. The only real disadvantage is that letter-writing is limited—the others tell me we’re allowed to send two per month—and that there is no chance of a home leave, of course!_

_Other than that, everything is pretty much tickety-boo, honestly. (I am not sure if they will let me send two letters at one go, so please, when you get this, drop a note to Lisel—if I am only allowed 1, I will send yours.)_

_Don’t, by the way, try to do anything about the uniform situation—I don’t see how you could get hold of one, and we aren’t allowed civilian clothes, apart from Red-Cross-issue underthings, as they might aid us in an escape attempt.(!) The most important thing that I want from you is a letter. When you are able to send a parcel, the main thing is another photograph and some cigarettes. You can fill in the corners with whatever kind of foodstuffs you find that can survive what could be a journey of several months—but the only things I really need, and can’t get from Red Cross, etc., are the letter and the photograph._

_Speaking of cigarettes, light one for me!_

_Much love,_

_Peter_

_30 May, 1915_

_Bloody sodding hell. Red Cross came, told me I cannot send letter as I am not on their list. I’m so angry I could cry. Going off to smoke._

_Later_

_Still crushed with disappointment, but the others have been doing their best to cheer me up. Not being on the blessed list, I didn’t even get a standard-issue parcel, either, but the Parcels Committee did a whip-round, and I’m fairly sure I ended up with more & better goodies than anyone else. (Capt. K. did not get parcel either, but both officers and men chipped in for me, and only officers for him. Plus the officers were more generous with me, for Boys’ Own Story reasons. One of them gave me a tin of smoked oysters, and another contributed half of a cake that his sister baked with her own lily-white hands—among other things too numerous to mention.)_

_Really, I don’t even mind that much for my own sake, about the letter, only I know how worried you must be. Everyone I’ve spoken to on the matter says that their first letters from home say some variation on “what a blessed relief it is to hear you’re being treated well, after What They Did in Belgium,” etc. It absolutely kills me that you’re worrying when you don’t have to. _

_You might even be worrying about whether I’m alive—the Red Cross volunteer wasn’t sure whether my not being on the list might mean that you hadn’t been notified. She said she thought not—more likely, her local office just doesn’t have the most up-to-date list—but she took down all of my information onto a card, which she said she would post immediately to the central office in Geneva, in case they don’t already have it._

_I wonder now if Lisel has found any sort of war-work—she was thinking of looking for some, when last I heard from her. She might do well in the Red Cross prisoners’ bureau; they need people with lots of languages. (Our ones who came here are German ladies, so I suppose in England it is English ladies visiting the German prisoners, and it’s the Swiss who coordinate the whole thing from Geneva, so one way or the other, she ought to qualify.)_

_Off to the NCOs’ mess—there is a party for Parcel Day._

_14 June, 1915_

_Dear Thomas,_

_I feel as though I ought to say sorry for not writing for over two weeks—but it isn’t as though you’ll have missed my letters any more than you do already. There wasn’t much to say, and writing letters you won’t read wasn’t giving me as much comfort anymore, after I’d got my hopes up about finally being able to send it off._

_But there is lots of news to tell now, so it’s as good a time as any to write. We have moved again—that is, Capt. K. and I—this time, to a military hospital in a major German city. (I do know which one, this time, but I had better not say, in case I do get the chance to post this.) They have a ward for treating prisoners, and hearing that they are short of doctors, Capt. K. volunteered us at once. (He told me I didn’t have to go, but if I didn’t, I’d probably have been sent to a camp for enlisted sooner or later—besides, I’d just as soon get back to medical work; since we’ll be treating our own people, I feel as though it’s still helping the war effort.)_

_This journey was very different from the previous—we were taken by regular passenger train, escorted by two German guards apiece, and decently fed at a station café. (I won’t say well fed; German station cafes are no better than ours, and half the menu was struck out due to shortages, but we got the same thing our escorts got—and we’d had a sending-off party the night before, as well.) _

_The hospital, like our London ones, has both military and civilian wards. The prisoners-of-war ward is devoted to officers, but receives the occasional serious case from among enlisted prisoners. (These are set off on one end, behind a screen.) As at our last, the prisoners are British and French—patients, MO’s, and orderlies alike, although the staff is supplemented with some German nurses, from the Red Cross and their equivalent of the VAD._

_The ward holds sixty—which is rather a lot—all types of cases mixed together: wounded and sick, walking and stretcher, medical and surgical. Surgeries, I’m told, are done in a common operating room, under the supervision of German doctors, all scalpels accounted for afterwards and so on. Capt. K. makes the third MO—one of the others is French, the other British—and there are six British orderlies and two French._

_If you were RAMC, you’d say that isn’t nearly enough orderlies for sixty cases, especially if more than a few of them are serious, but we have the nurses, and civilian workers do quite a bit of what falls to our lot in a field hospital—laundry and cooking and so on. I’m also told that from time to time a German orderly or two will be seconded to us—although in return, we are asked to help with civilian patients when our own ward isn’t full._

_I say “we,” but we have been here two days, and I haven’t done much yet—today I changed beds. Mostly I have been getting settled in. Our orderly room is comfortable enough, though a bit small for eight—we sleep in bunks, one atop the other, and there’s really only room for two or three of us to be out of our bunks at any one time. Rations are similar to at the camp, and supplemented as usual by parcels._

_That reminds me, the Parcels Committee back at camp never did come up with anything to do about my uniform—apart from a spare pair of puttees someone had—but as soon as I got here, one of the other British orderlies found me some trousers, and a French one “organized” a surgeon’s gown from somewhere and constructed a combination lining-and-reinforcement for my tunic—I might have tried the latter myself, had I thought of it, but I’m not sure my sewing skills are up to it. The Frenchman is a tailor in civilian life, and made a very neat job of it. I’m not sure it will last me through a long war, but it will certainly buy some time._

_I’m tired now, from all the bed-making, so I will sign off, and write more soon. Light a cigarette for me._

_Your loving,_

_Peter_

_18 June, 1915_

_Dear Thomas,_

_Capt. K had some very bad news for me yesterday. Apparently, as we are in a position likely to be exposed to military secrets—because of the German officers and men in the hospital, and the German workers here on our ward—we do not have letter-writing privileges. He swears on the Bible that he did not know this before he volunteered us to come here (which I believe) and that he only found out yesterday (which I do not—he has been cagy since our first full day here)._

_I was ready to demand to be sent to a regular camp at once, but one of the patients—a serious enlisted case—talked me down. He says that conditions in the camps for enlisted can be very bad: not just hard work, which I knew about, but inadequate food, dangerous work, lots of sickness, and violent guards. Not all are as bad as that, but there’s a real chance of ending up somewhere I could be killed. I reckon you’d rather I lived through the war, even if it means more worry, so I suppose I had better stay where I am._

_The French MO also promises me that the Red Cross will tell you where, in general, I am. He was brought here immediately after his capture, and has never been able to send a letter either, but we are allowed to receive letters, just not post them, and he says that his wife’s to him indicate that she quite aware that he is in a hospital tending fellow prisoners, and has even mentioned getting a positive report from Geneva about conditions in our hospital (though they won’t tell her which one it is), so he is sure that you, mon frère, will also receive this comforting news in due course. _

_As you might be able to tell, I waited until I had gotten over the worst of my feelings before writing this—if this notebook is to last me through the war, I had better choose carefully what I write in it. Once I am a bit calmer still, I plan to attempt contact through mental telepathy. (I won’t try it just yet, since I don’t want you to sense how upset I am, in the unlikely event that it works.) Light a cigarette for me, please, dearest._

_Your Peter_

_25 June, 1915_

_Parcel day! I got one Red Cross, and one from the RAMC Welfare Committee. The latter was simply addressed to “Any RAMC Prisoner,” and was allocated to me by the Parcels Committee, but the former indicates that I am finally on the blessed list. Since the Red Cross knows where I am, surely you do as well—or at least will very soon._

_Parcels contain all sorts of good things: tinned milk, biscuits, sweets, potted meat, jam, etc. Many of these goods are in short supply here in Unnamed German City, and the German workers are quite well informed as to what the Red Cross sends us, so there is a brisk trade going on. I have mostly kept what I got—I haven’t been here long enough to be tired of the usual things they send, although some of the others are—but I traded one can of milk, which one of the charwomen was very anxious to get, for a little grandchild. That is, she wanted the milk for the grandchild; what she gave me was a sort of dry and crumbly seed-cake-thing that she had produced in her own kitchen. She assures me that she is normally a much better baker than this would indicate, but it is so hard to get butter, sugar, eggs, etc. that none of her recipes come out right. I suppose this is my good deed for the day, and I can now stuff myself on the contents of my parcels with a clean conscience._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another significant difference between the historical sinking of the _Anglia_ and that of the fictional _Albion_ is that the Germans took no prisoners of war from the _Anglia_ ; however, there are at least two well-documented case of a German U-Boat going back to rescue-and-capture survivors from a British ship that it had sunk. These are discussed in the book _The Prisoners: 1914-18_ , by Robert Jackson, Routledge, 1989, pp. 15-16. In both cases, the prisoners were impressed by the courtesy with which they were treated by the U-Boat crews.
> 
> My main source for Peter’s treatment in German captivity was also the book _The Prisoners: 1914-18_ , cited above, which extensively quotes numerous primary-source documents on the subject of British POWs in German hands. They experienced a wide range of conditions. Prisoners who were captured singly or in small groups often reported their surprise at receiving civilized and courteous treatment from their initial captors, as in the two examples mentioned above. Once prisoners entered the official system, their reception was typically less pleasant, but the range of experiences ran the gamut from deliberate cruelty, to bureaucratic indifference, to acts of interpersonal kindness and humanity. Many experienced all three at different points in their journey. 
> 
> Prison camps also varied widely. Some were fairly tolerable, while others were sites of extreme brutality and deprivation. Individual guards within a camp also varied in their attitudes. In general, camps for officers were generally better than those for enlisted men, and conditions throughout the system deteriorated over the course of the war, particularly as food shortages became acute. The Hague Conventions of 1907 required that prisoners be fed the same as the armed services of the country that held them captive, but towards the end of the war, the German army was starving too. 
> 
> Prisoners could supplement their official rations with food parcels, the delivery of which (after searching by guards) was also assured through the Hague Conventions. Parcels were sent by individual families, the Red Cross, and other charitable groups, and included staple foods like bread or ship’s biscuit, cheese, jam, and canned meat, as well as various treats. Tobacco was also provided. 
> 
> The Hague Conventions also guaranteed the right of POWs to send and receive letters from home, under the supervision of the Red Cross, but this right was often suspended for disciplinary or other reasons. The idea that Peter was unable to send letters due to his hospital work is a bit of artistic license, as it was necessary for dramatic purposes to have him completely out of reach; I am not aware of any cases in which a POW was prevented from writing home for such a long period. 
> 
> In addition, the International Red Cross was in charge of collecting information about prisoners being held in all countries involved in the war, entering it into a massive card-file based in Geneva, Switzerland, and communicating it to the prisoners’ home countries. Despite the diligent efforts and hard work of many people of all nationalities, some prisoners did slip through the cracks for one reason or another.


	6. Chapter Four: August-September, 1915

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas arrives at his new posting in France, and makes an impression.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brief medical gore, and what I’m fairly confident is the most swearing you’ll see in a comparably-sized piece of Downton Abbey fic. (See historical note.)

_24 August, 1915_

_Dear Mrs. Hughes,_

_I write to you from my new post at the 47 th Ambulance, in a location I am not allowed to tell you about. The 47th is not a vehicle, but a Main Dressing Station, though it does also have several ambulances, both motor and horse. We are based out of a building that used to be a school, and is still mostly standing up, and are a fairly large station; more like a small hospital, really. We have a full operating theater, dispensary, and enough space that the patients can stay on our wards if they only need a couple of weeks to recover from whatever’s troubling them. (Any longer than that, and they get sent further back.) _

_So far, my contribution to all this has been in the form of making beds and things like that. There are five of us new fellows—most of the other orderlies have been here for ages—so we are starting out with the simplest work. The experienced men were all glad to have us come, as they have been shorthanded for some time, and so have been very welcoming._

_We are about XX miles behind the front line, and so are very safe here. The sector has been quiet, so I haven’t had to go forward to collect wounded yet. Every few days, word goes round that the Wardmaster, who is the man in charge of us orderlies, has said that we new blokes ought to be taken up to get the lie of the land while things are still quiet, but something else always comes up for us to do here instead._

_Thank you for the biscuits. If you send more, you might look for the kind that come in a tin. Our billet has mice._

_Thomas_

When Anna looked up from the letter, Mrs. Hughes said, “He sounds as though he’s in fairly good spirits.”

There was a hint of a question in her tone, and she nodded. “He does know that the ones he writes to you get passed around to everyone, but he didn’t say anything too different to me. They’re near enough to the artillery that they can hear it—our artillery, I mean—but a good distance behind it. The ‘things like that’ is mostly to do with bedpans, which I suppose he thought was a bit indelicate to tell you about. And his billet’s in a barn, which he’s about as pleased about as you’d expect, but he isn’t taking it personally.” She gave the letter back. “He mentioned the tin to me as well, so I suppose we had best find one. The village shop was out of biscuits in tins when I checked.”

“I expect we have a tin, somewhere in this house,” Mrs. Hughes pointed out. “Perhaps Daisy would bake something to go in it.” 

“He might like that,” Anna agreed. 

#

_29 August, 1915_

_Dear Thomas,_

_I’m glad to hear you’re someplace safe, even if you don’t like your billet. I don’t imagine I’d like sleeping in a barn, either—especially not with mice. The shop was all out of biscuits in tins, but Mrs. Hughes and I found this one in the storeroom, and we’ve put some of Daisy’s ginger nuts in it. She remembered that you like them. Perhaps they’ll cheer you and the others up a bit, about the barn._

_Love,_

_Anna Smith_

Thomas groaned on reading the note that came with his parcel. He supposed Anna was right, that he ought to share the biscuits with the others in the billet. The 47th did not, he had learned, adopt the Communist policy in regards to biscuits that Peter had described—perhaps because there were a few buggers who would abuse the system—but most evenings there was a sort of social hour in the barn, between getting back there after dinner and everyone setting down to sleep, where the contents of bottles and parcels were shared and everyone talked as they took care of their kit, played cards, or simply lay on their bedrolls and smoked.

Thomas avoided these gatherings as much as possible. If he didn’t have any work to do on his kit, he came up with some excuse to walk back to the billet on his own, instead of with the crowd, and then took a longer route, stopping for a solitary cigarette or two on the way. It wasn’t that anything particularly objectionable happened in them—although Thomas could have done without some of the discussion on the subject of women—but he had never before realized how essential to his peace of mind it was to be able to go into his bedroom at the end of the day and shut the bloody door. 

Even when he’d had to share with another footman—or with Jamie, when he’d been younger—he’d at least _occasionally_ had the room to himself. When you were sharing a barn with a dozen other men, that never happened. It had been the same in the tent at training camp, of course, but it seemed worse now, perhaps because the work was more strenuous, or perhaps the strain of it was just building up on him.

Particularly the strain of not being, as Bates had put it, a complete tit. Keeping his head down and not saying what was on his mind had worked out well for him so far, and he wanted to keep doing it, but it was hard, especially when one or another of the section was being particularly annoying. 

But while he could just about get away with keeping to himself, keeping his _biscuits_ to himself was a different story altogether. A man who was a bit quiet, but all right, might make a habit of having a bit of a walk and a smoke by himself of an evening; keeping away from the billet so that he could smuggle his biscuits in under cover of darkness was surely the action of a complete tit. 

With utmost reluctance, he got up and turned his steps toward the barn. It sat on its own between two weed-choked fields, the house that had once belonged to it shelled into rubble. The only positive thing that could be said about it was that it did not stink of manure—probably because it had been unfit for the shelter of cattle for years before the war started. It had thick, sturdy stone walls, but the wooden roof might as well have been a sieve; many of the boards were loose enough to _flap_ on windy days. Honestly, he was surprised the mice chose to live there. 

The men it housed had no choice, being the newest in the unit. Four had come over with Thomas, and the rest in earlier drafts that year. 

When he got to the barn, after picking his way to his spot, through the maze of men and their belongings, he unrolled his groundsheet and blankets—you had to stow them every morning, even though the idea of anyone conducting a barracks inspection in this place was laughable, because that way you at least had a chance of _some_ of your things staying dry if it rained—then opened his biscuit tin, took a couple, and passed it to Lamble, who had the place next to his. 

“Oh, thanks!” Lamble said, breaking off one of his long and pointless anecdotes to do it. “Are these homemade?”

“Sort of,” Thomas said. They were made in somebody’s home, anyway. 

“The first biscuits my sister ever tried to bake were ginger nuts,” Lamble noted, passing the tin to the next man—Rawlins, who was one of the old-timers in their section, having come over at the end of February. “Only she put in black pepper instead of the ginger. Don’t ask me how….”

Lamble kept talking about his sister’s biscuits, but Thomas stopped listening. That was one thing about having so many of them in the billet. Some bugger was always talking—and more often than not it was Lamble—but if he said something requiring a reply, you could generally count on somebody else making it. He checked his kit—all in good order—and was about to light another cigarette when he noticed Rawlins holding out a bottle of wine.

Lamble, instead of taking it, scooted back on his bedroll as if it might burn him. He hadn’t been in Thomas’s section in training, but Thomas vaguely remembered he was one of the lot that, when the rest went to the pub, buggered off to the God-Botherers’ Hut for cocoa and a sing-song instead. Leaning across Lamble to grab the bottle, he told Rawlins, “He’s Methodist.”

“Quaker, actually,” said Lamble. 

_Really_? That was a little hard to imagine. Nearly the only thing Thomas knew about Quakers was that they went to church by sitting silently in a room, which he knew for the same reason everyone did—because of the children’s game called Quaker Meeting, which he was convinced had been invented by some harassed Mum or Dad who wanted a moment’s peace. The one who could sit in complete silence for the longest, without even laughing or smiling, was the winner. Lamble would be _terrible_ at that game. But he just shrugged and said, “Sorry. Knew it was one of those teetotal Nonconformist ones.”

Plank, another old-timer, sat up on his bedroll. “How in the hell do _you_ manage that?” he asked. 

Lamble started yammering about something called the Peace Testimony, and the choice of serving in a noncombatant capacity being “a matter for the conscience of the individual.” 

It was actually one of the more interesting things Thomas had ever heard him say, but by the time he started in on the Friends Ambulance Unit—which was, apparently, working with the French, because the British Army wouldn’t have them—everyone else was looking around and murmuring things like, “What’s he on about?” 

“But I wanted to serve my country,” Lamble concluded. “And besides, there weren’t very many places in the FAU, and the elders in my Meeting are against it anyway, so I decided to do this.” 

A long and awkward silence followed this pronouncement. Finally, Thomas decided that no one else was going to say it. “He meant the bloody _meetings_ , mate. Because you never shut up. Not why you’re not a conchie.” Realizing belatedly that he had probably just insulted all of Lamble’s friends and relations back home, he added, “-entious objector.” 

“Oh,” said Lamble, and was silent for a long moment. “Well, it’s actually a common misunderstanding, that Meetings for Worship are silent. We don’t have a priest or minister, you see, so there’s no sermon, but any Member of the Meeting can speak if he’s moved to do so by the spirit of God.”

That raised another question, which Thomas found himself asking before he’d quite considered the wisdom of it. “How in hell do the rest of them manage _you_ , then?”

As soon as he’d said it, he could almost see Carson scowling, and hear Mrs. Hughes saying, “ _Thomas!_ ” But nobody here shouted _Barrow!_ in a scandalized way; in fact, there was a sort of murmur of approval that Thomas didn’t quite know how to respond to.

On Lamble’s other side, Rawlins—visibly choking back laughter—said, “He’s got you there, mate.”

Lamble looked crestfallen, and Thomas felt a wholly unfamiliar impulse to apologize, even though nobody was making him do it. Instead, he lit a cigarette. 

Rawlins, getting himself under control, said, “But I was wondering about the conchie thing, too. I think it’s bloody brave, signing up even though nobody expects you to.”

Lamble brightened up a bit at that, and Thomas quickly said, “Too right.” That touched off a murmur of agreement, and he figured that was apology enough. 

#

Another night, Thomas came in from smoking his after-dinner cigarette and was greeted with shouts of “There he is!” 

A bit startled, he nearly took a step back, but then someone was shoving a tin cup of wine into his hand, so he shrugged and made his way to his spot.

“I was just telling them,” explained Manning, who had been working on the Men’s Surgical ward along with Thomas that day. 

_Telling them what_? Thomas was considering whether or not to ask when Manning went on.

“So this bloke had been banging on all morning about his fucking wedding ring. ‘RAMC really does stand for Robs All My Comrades, I’m going to write to the War Office about this, ekcetera.”

Oh, that.

“And he starts up again when Barrow here goes up to get his bloody porridge-basin—Where’s my wedding ring, I know some bugger nicked it, who was it? And Barrow goes, ‘I’m sure it was just misplaced, old bean.’” 

Manning said the last part in a plummy accent that Thomas supposed was meant to sound like him—although if he had ever in his life said the words “old bean,” he’d been taking the piss at the time. 

“And chappy’s all, ‘Misplaced, my arse,’ ekcetera. Barrow buggers off for a while, and I figure he’s just doing the washing up and maybe having a smoke in bloody peace and quiet, but then he gets back and he goes right up to the bugger and says, ‘Would this by any chance be the ring in question, my good man?’”

Thomas had not said that, either, but he didn’t argue—he’d actually said, “Is this yours, sir?” which was worse, because the bloke was only a bloody corporal. 

“So it is his, and is he grateful?”

“No!” someone called out.

“Fuck no,” Manning agreed. “He starts up again. Where was it? Who took it? Was it you what took it? Did ones of your mates take it? And then this _magnificent bastard_ right here says, ‘It was still on your hand, mate.’” Manning fell over laughing. “It was _still on his bloody hand_.”

Thomas thought that the wine must have been going around for a while now, because everyone seemed to find that as hilarious as Manning did. “He was lucky,” Thomas said, “it hadn’t gone into the incinerator yet.” 

That, apparently, was hilarious too. 

“How did you know where it was?” Lamble asked him.

“I didn’t,” Thomas answered. “I went to Surgical Prep and asked where it would have ended up, if a man wearing a wedding ring had his left hand amputated. They couldn’t find it, so there was only one place left to check.”

“I don’t think I could have done it,” said Lamble. “Searching through all the severed limbs?” He shuddered. 

“There weren’t that many of them,” Thomas said. He had, in fact, been picturing an enormous pile of rotting severed limbs—and wouldn’t have searched it if that’s what it had been—but there was actually just a smallish bin by the incinerator. It was only about half full, and there had been only one left hand in it. 

He wasn’t surprised the Surgical Prep orderlies had missed it—the hand was pretty well mangled, the first two fingers missing entirely, and the ring finger a bloody stump. Scrubbing the gore off the ring had been a job and a half. 

“Still,” said Lamble. 

By this point, the general conversation had moved on to some other subject of hilarity, so Thomas admitted, to the blokes nearby, “What surprised me was that he cared about his wedding ring when his entire hand had just been chopped off.” What was he planning to _do_ with his wedding ring, once he got it back? 

“That happens,” said Rawlins, the bloke on the next bedroll over, with the voice of experience. “They’re up to the eyeballs in morphine, you know, so the wounds don’t really hurt. But in the back of their minds they know something’s wrong, and they pick something else to get upset about. I had this bloke once, both legs blown off, and he wouldn’t shut up about how he had to go back to his regiment and get the two shillings sixpence that his mate owed him. You’d try to tell him, mate, you’re going back to Blighty, don’t worry about that now, and he’d say, all right, but first I’ve got to go back to the Front and get my two and six.” 

The spirit of God then moved Lamble to tell them a long and rambling story about a great-aunt of his who, in her dotage, became obsessed with a doll she had lost as a child, which went on long after the time that everyone else has started to settle down into their bedrolls. The spirit of God moved Thomas to heave his boots at him, but he restrained the impulse.

#

From bed-making and bed pans, Thomas moved on to dishing out the men’s dinners and doing the washing-up afterwards. He supposed it was a bit of a step up, at any rate. Then he was rotated “off-wards” for a spell, and was assigned to be orderlies’ room orderly. 

It was the first thing he’d had to do since he joined up that he genuinely loathed—at least, apart from trying to sleep in a leaking, vermin-infested barn, where at least you had the comfort of a dozen or so other blokes who hated it as much as you did.

But being posted to the orderlies’ room was apparently supposed to be some kind of treat. Located in the former school building—most of the wards were in Army huts—it was where the orderlies took their tea breaks and generally hung about when they didn’t have anything better to do, but if you were posted there, you were essentially the tweeny. You had to make the tea, and empty the ash-trays, and sweep up all the ashes and cigarette ends left on the floor by blokes who were too filthy and lazy to use the ash-trays, and generally clean up after everybody. You also had to do the same things in the NCOs’ room, which was next door, but they also felt perfectly free to ask you to do any bit of their job they didn’t feel like doing, or, if they caught you sitting down, clean their boots. 

The worst part of it, though, was that any time anything mildly interesting happened anywhere in the vicinity, some bugger would run to the orderlies’ room to tell the story—and then keep on telling it to everyone else who came in, so that if you were in there all day, you ended up where you could tell it better than the bloke it had happened to. 

After about a week of this, the sergeants all happened to be elsewhere at the same time, and Corporal Diggs—one of the Regular Army men, scrawny and ferrety-looking—announced he was popping off on an important errand. “You’ve got everything under control here, don’t you, Barrow?”

Thomas agreed that he did.

Halfway out the door, he paused and said, “If the linen-van comes before I’m back, you’ll have to sign for it. Oh, and finish filling out the chitty for the pick-up.” Then he buggered off before Thomas had a chance to say anything about it. 

That was a dirty trick, and Thomas knew it. Nearly every day, the Wardmaster tore Diggs a new arsehole over something to do with the linen delivery. The van was supposed to bring back the exact same number of each item as they’d picked up in the morning, but when the stuff was distributed back to the wards, there was always something missing. So the Wardmaster would tell Diggs to insist that they make up the discrepancy the next time, but the linen-van man would just pull out a clipboard, thumb through a mess of forms stuck to it, and show him where he’d signed saying he’d got what he was supposed to get. 

“Tosser,” Thomas muttered at Diggs’s departing back. Sticking a cigarette in his mouth, he went to the heap of papers that Diggs liked to call his desk, and had a rummage through it, looking for the ones to do with today’s linen.

The forms that the ward-corporals had turned in with their sacks of dirty linen were under a teacup with a half-inch of cold tea and a fag-end floating in it, but if Diggs had even _started_ filling out the chitty for the pick-up, Thomas was buggered if he could find it. Finally, he found a supply of blank ones under a stack of old requisition forms, and started filling out a fresh one. 

The running of a dressing station required eighty-one different kinds of linen, from tray-cloths (officers’, for the use of) to bedsheets (hospital) to surgeon’s gowns. For each item, Thomas had to find the relevant figure on the form from each ward, add them all up, and enter the total on the chitty. It might not have been too difficult, except that people kept interrupting to ask if there was any tea, or to tell an amusing anecdote involving pus or an estaminet girl.

He got it done moments before the linen-van pulled up, and then had to leave the linen-van man standing there while he dug through Diggs’s rubbish heap looking for their copy of yesterday’s chitty. When he finally found it, he had to help the linen-van man pull the sacks out of the back of the van—which apparently he could not have done while Thomas was looking for the sodding chitty—and then open them up to check that they actually contained what their labels claimed they did.

“We’re short two bolster-cases here,” he said.

“No you ain’t,” said the linen-van man. 

“Yes, we are. We gave you fifty-seven yesterday; there are only fifty-five here.” Thomas brandished the form. 

Scowling suspiciously, the linen-van man thumbed through his own collection of forms. 

“It’s going to say the same thing mine does,” Thomas pointed out. Did he not understand how carbon paper worked?

After much squinting at the form, the linen-van man confirmed that it did look as though his copy said fifty-seven, as well. 

“And what do you propose we remedy this situation?”

“Wha?”

“What are we going to do about it?”

The linen-van man considered. “There’s nowt more in the van.”

Of course not; that would make things entirely too easy. “Suppose we write on the chitty that we’re owed two?” he suggested. He had never noticed Diggs doing anything of the kind, but he didn’t have any better ideas. 

Eventually, the linen-van man agreed to this course of action, which they repeated when it came to towels, surgical (of which they were short six) and mattress-cases, officers’ (where only one was missing). Thomas carefully made the emendations on both his and the linen-van man’s copies of the chitty, and required that the linen-van man initial them. For good measure, he wrote “+2,” “+6” and “+1” in the appropriate columns of the new chitty, and made him initial those, too. 

When the linen-van man finally left, he’d have liked to sit down for a cup of tea—or even a _nap_ —but the next bit was sorting out the linen into piles for the wards to pick up. At least, that was the way it was supposed to be done, but half the time, Diggs couldn’t be arsed to find the forms from the previous day, and just told Thomas to put everything in stacks by type of item and then told the wards to grab what was owing to them. 

So he jammed another cigarette into his mouth and went for another rummage through Diggs’s desk. Yesterday’s forms from the ward, instead of being filed under a cup of tea, as today’s had been, were kept under a plate containing several smears of jam. 

Clearly, he was too inexperienced to understand the intricacies of Diggs’s system. 

He was getting on with the sorting, piles of linen spread out all over the store-room, when Corporal Jessop stuck his head in. “Barrow, is there any—” He stopped, perhaps noticing Thomas’s thunderous expression. “Where’s Diggs?”

“Stepped out,” said Thomas, flatly.

“Ah.” Jessop nodded. “I’ll just put the kettle on meself, why don’t I.”

He didn’t say it sarcastically, so Thomas answered, “If you don’t mind.”

Diggs still wasn’t back by the time the ward-orderlies started showing up to collect their clean linen, so Thomas was left to hand everything out and initial their chits—which would be straightforward enough until he got to somebody who was supposed to get something that was missing. 

The one who came down from the officers’ ward—and so was supposed to receive the officers’ mattress-cases, of which they were one short—was Lamble, the chatty Quaker. When Thomas explained about how he’d been writing the discrepancies on the chits and initialing them.

“Is that what you’re meant to do, when something’s missing?” Lamble asked.

“I haven’t a sodding clue,” Thomas told him. 

“Only Corporal Diggs never does.”

“Well, he’s buggered off and left it to me, so I’m making it up as I go along.”

“Right,” said Lamble, quickly initialing his chit and giving it back. “Better you than me, mate.”

Then things went smoothly until the bloke from surgery turned up, and Thomas had to explain about the towels. He was still in the middle of it when the Wardmaster came in. He was a stocky man of about Lord Grantham’s vintage, not overly tall but with an imposing presence. Thomas immediately stopped what he was saying and stood up straight. You didn’t come to attention for an NCO, even the most senior one in the unit, but you were supposed to show you’d noticed somebody important was in the room—bracing up, they called it. 

“Where the fuck is Diggs?” asked the Wardmaster.

“Stepped out, Sergeant,” Thomas said smartly.

“Right here,” said Diggs, turning up seemingly out of nowhere. “Everything all correct.”

The way he said it was just enough of a question that, when the discrepancy appeared, he could say he’d been asking Thomas to confirm it. So Thomas, on the theory that a bollocking delayed was a bollocking doubled, said, “We’re missing two bolster-cases, six surgical towels, and an officers’ mattress-case.” 

Diggs glanced over the stacks of linen still before them. “How do you know that?” he asked suspiciously.

“I expect he fucking counted it,” said the Wardmaster, scathingly. “Where’s the sodding chitty?”

While Diggs started to mutter something about his desk, Thomas produced it. 

The Wardmaster snatched it out of his hand and examined it. “What the fuck’s this?” he asked Diggs, jabbing a finger at a part of the page.

“Don’t know, Sarge,” said Diggs. “But that bit looks like Barrow’s initials.”

There was a murmur from the crowd of orderlies waiting for their linen. Diggs had just Dropped His Mate in the Shit, which was an offense slightly worse than nicking somebody’s last cigarette, and only a little better than murder. 

The Wardmaster turned to him and pointed to the spot on the form again—which was, of course, one of the places where Thomas had written in about one of the missing items. “What the fuck is this?” he repeated.

“Well, Sergeant,” he said, thinking quickly. There really wasn’t anything he could say other than the truth, was there? “I wrote in the items that were short, and had the linen-van man initial by them, so he wouldn’t be able to say we’d had them when we hadn’t. I wasn’t sure where to find the proper form for it, so…that’s what I did.”

“There isn’t a fucking form for it, because it isn’t supposed to fucking happen,” said the Wardmaster. 

It was hardly his fault it had, but there was no reason that should suddenly start to matter now, when he never had before in his life. “Yes, Sergeant.”

The Wardmaster looked t the form again. “Are you fucking telling me,” he said, “that Diggs _stepped out_ long enough for you to get the linen delivery, count it, _and_ convince the fucking linen-van bugger to initial your fucking chitty?”

Thomas could not answer that question without also Dropping His Mate in the Shit, so he braced up against and said, “Sergeant.”

“And how long have you been in this fucking shithole?”

“About a month, Sergeant.” He wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything.

The Wardmaster turned to Diggs, his mouth working soundlessly. Finally, he said, “You useless _nitwit_.”

It was the first utterance Thomas had ever heard from him that did not contain the word “fuck,” or one of its close relations. He got the sense that if the Wardmaster had called Diggs a _fucking_ useless nitwit, it would mean he was less angry than he was. 

A cavernous silenced yawned through the room. When one of the ward-orderlies finally broke it by asking, timidly, if he could have the linen for Men’s Sick, please, Thomas hurried to give it to him. 

He really didn’t want to say it, but what choice did he have? ”You’re short a bolster case, mate,” he said quietly. 

With a wary sidelong glance at the Wardmaster, the orderly proffered his chitty. He’d been waiting long enough to see that Thomas had been initialing them. 

Thomas also looked warily at the Wardmaster. 

“Yes, put your fucking initials on it,” he said. “You should probably do both fucking copies.”

“I have been, Sergeant,” said Thomas quietly. 

_“Fuck_ ,” said the Wardmaster, and departed.

Some time later, Thomas was sweeping the orderlies’ room when Diggs came in. “He wants to see you,” he muttered, jerking his thumb in the general direction of the Wardmaster’s room. 

Thomas just bet he fucking did. He went to put the broom away, but Diggs took it out of his hand, and as he left the room, he heard the sound of hasty sweeping. 

Thomas had never been in the Wardmaster’s room before. It combined the roles of office and sitting room, with a large table at one end, used as a desk, and at the other a fireplace and two battered armchairs. Rumor had it that particularly favored orderlies were occasionally invited to sit in the second of these and drink the Wardmaster’s liquor.

Right now, the Wardmaster was at the desk end of it, of course. 

Bracing up square in front of the desk, Thomas said, “Sergeant.” If Diggs got demoted to sweeping the floor after this fiasco, God alone knew what was going to happen to him. Digging latrines, maybe. He couldn’t think of anything he could have done better than he had, but it was a well-established maxim of Army life that shit rolled downhill. 

“Right,” said the Wardmaster. “What the fuck happened today? And don’t worry about dropping that bugger in the shit—he’s already in it.”

So Thomas explained. 

“You did the fucking pick-up chitty, too?” The Wardmaster asked when he’d finished. 

“Yes, Sergeant.”

The Wardmaster leaned back in his chair. “What’d you do before you joined the R.A.M.-fucking-C.?”

“I was a footman, Sergeant.”

“Fuck, why didn’t you say something? We could have put you on the fucking ruperts’ ward.”

Well, no one had asked, had they? “Sergeant.”

The Wardmaster lit a cigarette. “You know you don’t have to say that unless you’re getting a fucking bollocking?”

Thomas had thought he was. Since he couldn’t think of any reply other than “Sergeant,” he said nothing.

“You do this kind of shite as a fucking footman?”

What kind of shite? “Sergeant?”

“Deliveries,” he clarified. 

Oh. “Yes. Well, the butler is in charge of them, but I assist him.” That was how he’d known he was supposed to fucking count it, even though he’d never seen Diggs do it. 

“Right, then,” said the Wardmaster, nodding decisively. “You’re fucking linen-wallah till you go back on wards. Jessop’ll show you how. He did it before Diggs.”

“Yes, Sergeant.” Was that better or worse than digging latrines? It was certainly cleaner, at any rate.

“And you’d better be a lance-corporal,” he decided. “There’s no fucking pay in it, but it’ll keep Diggs off your arse.”

Thomas doubted very much that that would do it—was, in fact, fairly sure that Diggs would want to have his balls in a bag—but said only, “Yes, Sergeant.”

When he got back to the orderly room, Diggs was explaining to all present that he was now orderlies; room corporal, “In charge of making sure you buggers don’t treat the place like a pigpen.”

It was a job somebody probably ought to have been doing, but Thomas had his doubts that the Wardmaster had put it to Diggs in precisely that way. 

“So you don’t have to do the linen anymore?” someone asked.

“Nah. It’s not that responsible a job. Anyone can do it.”

Thomas didn’t argue the point, just went to find Jessop. 

#

“Do you suppose,” Wardmaster Tully asked thoughtfully, opening the door to his office and ushering Corporal Jessop inside, “that Diggs has the mother-wit to realize he’s in the fucking doghouse—or is he just off seeing his fucking whore?”

“Hard to say,” Jessop said, lighting the candles to either side of Tully’s mantelpiece. They’d just come from the mess, and Diggs had, indeed, not shown his face—but that could be for either of the reasons Tully had mentioned. 

“I know it’s hard to say; that’s why I fucking asked,” Tully said, going into his desk drawer for a bottle of liquor. “If he doesn’t shape up soon, I’m gonna have to do something we’ll both fucking regret.” With a sigh, he dropped into one of the easy chairs in front of his fireplace and contemplated his boots for a moment. “You get the posh fucker sorted out?” 

Jessop nodded. “He’ll do. Diggs has been foisting bits of t’job off on him all week. I just had to show him how it all connects up—and help him figure out where Diggs keeps the forms.”

“Huh.” Tully sat up and poured the liquor into two mostly-clean glasses, handing one to Jessop. “See what you think of this—picked up a case of it in Par-ee.” 

Jessop tasted his cautiously—Tully had poured the stuff out like it was water, and was already halfway into his glass, but that didn’t mean much. All Jessop really noticed about it was that it burned on the way down. Give him a pint, any day. “That’ll put hair on your chest.” 

“I’m still getting used to it,” Tully said, refilling his glass. He tipped the bottle towards Jessop, but Jessop waved it off—he’d learned back in South Africa that trying to match Tully drink for drink was a fool’s game. “What d’you make of him, then? The lad.”

He was _lad_ now, and not _posh fucker_? Jessop put more thought into his answer than he had the one about the liquor. “Well, he’s no’ afraid of a bit of hard graft—hasn’t bucked at anything we’ve thrown at him yet. Not even when Diggs asked him to clean his boots.”

“Diggs should clean his own fucking boots,” Tully observed. 

“Aye. He’s quick,” Jessop continued, returning to the subject of Barrow. “Could be too quick for his own good, if he isn’t kept busy.” Tully knew as well as he did that the clever ones could make a lot of trouble for themselves, if they had too much time on their hands—like a sharp working dog penned up in the front parlor, they’d find _something_ to do. Tully’d managed to find quite a bit of trouble himself, before he’d had the luck to come under an NCO with the sense to point him at a flock of sheep and let him run. “Bit stand-offish, but the rest of the new lads seem to have decided he’s all right.” Jessop wasn’t sure if young Manning had noticed yet that he’d been eclipsed as ringleader of that little group—or if Barrow had, for that matter. “Doesn’t say much, you know, but when he does, they sit up and take notice.”

Tully nodded. “S’what I thought. In my considered opinion, he’s one to fucking watch.” He filled his glass again. “Did he ever mention what he did before the war?”

Jessop shook his head. “No’ that I’ve heard. But that accent of his slips from time to time—and if he’s not a Yorkshire tyke, his bloody _nursemaid_ was.”

Before Jessop was halfway through speaking, Tully started grinning. “You’re going to fucking love this.” 

“What?” 

“He was a fucking footman.” 

“Blimey.” Jessop would never have guessed that, but now that Tully said it, it explained everything. Why he talked like he’d just come out of a public school—except when he forgot to—and stood like he’d been born on a parade ground, but took to hard work like he’d been doing it all his life—because he likely had. “Not such a posh fucker after all, then.”

“Nope,” said Tully, popping the “p.” “He’s one they won’t be taking away from us for officer’s training.”

That had happened a couple of times already, this war, with lads the brass hats had picked out for NCO training. Tully had been equally furious at having them foisted on him—“They think going to a minor fucking public school is what makes an NCO?”—and at having them transferred away to supposedly-better things just when he’d started to “make some fucking progress with them.” 

It was early days yet, to be thinking of pushing Barrow up the ladder—but Tully was always thinking six or eight steps ahead; that’s why he was a Master Sergeant and Jessop had stayed a Corporal his whole career. Tully made the plans; Jessop carried them out. It had been that way since South Africa. “What do we do?”

“Right now? See how he does as linen-wallah. I made him up to lance-corporal, by the way—I know, it’s early, but I don’t want him cleaning Diggs’s fucking boots. Don’t give him any responsibilities in the section yet—the other new lads would buck at that, and I wouldn’t blame ‘em—and if he starts getting too big for his boots, thump him down. Or send him to me for a thumping, if you’re too soft.” He shrugged. “Apart from that, you know what to do—if the linen job isn’t keeping him busy, find more for him to do. Show him anything that comes up that you think he ought to see.”

Jessop nodded; he did know. “We still haven’t sent the new lads forward,” he reminded Tully. “We’ll want to see how he handles that, before we get too far along.” Plenty of men did well enough on wards and at administrative work, but fell apart under fire. 

“Right,” said Tully. “Been meaning to do that. We’ll put ‘em on the list for stretcher parties next week—pick a few steady blokes to mix in with ‘em. Then we’ll see.”

#

“I’ve had a letter from Thomas,” Mrs. Hughes announced at dinner. “He says he’s been able to make a good impression on the man in charge where he is now, and he has you to thank for it, Mr. Carson.”

“Hmph,” said Mr. Carson. 

“He wrote me a bit about that as well,” Anna said. He’d also mentioned Mr. Carson, but it had been something on the order of, _It turns out having old Carson riding me all these years has been excellent preparation for military life._ “He’s been made a lance-corporal again, and something called ‘linen-wallah.’”

“That’s Army talk,” Mr. Bates said, “for the chap in charge of something.” 

“Well, I’m sure that’s a very responsible job in a hospital,” Mrs. Hughes said. “Don’t you think?” she asked Mr. Carson.

“I suppose,” he said. “I’m not sure what I can have had to do with it, though.”

“Apparently there was some sort of mix-up, and he ended up having to take responsibility for a delivery,” Mrs. Hughes explained. “It involves checking that everything is correct—as you do with the wine deliveries, Mr. Carson—and it seems he had less difficulty with it than the man who’d been doing it before.”

 _This bloke called Diggs ran off and left me to do it on my own_ , Thomas had written to her, _and I wasn’t too happy, because he’s always getting in trouble for doing it wrong. But it turns out the problem is that half the time he’s too lazy to check the delivery when it comes, and the other half, he’s too thick to count correctly._

“It doesn’t seem like it would be difficult,” Mr. Carson said. 

_And apparently_ , Thomas had gone on, _some people find it difficult to tell the difference between, say, a pillow-slip and a pillow-case (which is just that one’s got buttons on it). I’d like to put them in front of Carson and see them confuse a luncheon-napkin for a dinner one, or a pudding-wine glass for a cordial-glass. That’s not a mistake you make twice._

“I think it’s to do with attention to detail,” Anna said. “Being able to tell the different items apart at a glance, like.”

Carson still did not look impressed, but said, “If I have been able to be a positive influence on him, I’m glad of it. Though I could wish it had shown up while he was still here.”

Mrs. Hughes said quickly, “I’ve been wondering, Mr. Bates, what exactly _is_ a lance-corporal? I suppose it’s a promotion?”

“Sort of,” Mr. Bates said. “It’s considered an appointment, rather than a rank. When they need to give someone a bit of extra authority, temporarily or for a specific reason, they make him a lance-corporal.”

“Thomas says it’s basically a private with knobs on,” Anna added.

Down the table, one of the hall-boys snickered, stopping abruptly when he received a quelling glance from Mr. Carson. 

“A _glorified_ private,” Mr. Bates suggested. 

“So it’s not a _real_ promotion, then?” William asked.

Mr. Bates made an equivocating gesture. “It’s not a formal promotion, but at this point, a month into active service? It’s…impressive. If he were made a full corporal at this stage, it would be _astonishing_.”

“He was one in training, too,” Anna pointed out. “Twice.”

“It means a bit more on active service,” Mr. Bates said. He sighed. “I wouldn’t tell him this, but my guess would be that, unless they’ve lost a _lot_ of men recently? They’re considering whether he’s NCO material.” His tone was unmistakably dubious. “Non-commissioned officer, that is.”

“An _officer_?” Daisy asked. “Like Mr. Matthew?”

“No,” said Madge, scornfully, with all the authority of her few months as a soldier’s fiancée. “Mr. Matthew’s a _commissioned_ officer. You’ve got to be a gentleman for that.”

More kindly, Mr. Bates explained, “NCOs come up through the ranks. Like…well, me. I was a sergeant.”

Anna had the distinct impression that it cost Mr. Bates something to make that comparison—he had warmed up to Thomas, but seemed to have managed it by thinking of Thomas as a little younger than he really was, and in need of guidance. 

“Oh,” said Daisy. “That makes more sense.”

“The way it works is, the commissioned officers tell us what needs to be done, and then we tell the men how to do it,” Mr. Bates added. “You might say his lordship and her ladyship are the officers of the house, and Mr. Carson, Mrs. Hughes, and Mrs. Patmore are the NCOs.”

Mr. Carson cleared his throat.

“Mr. Carson, of course would be the _Master_ Sergeant,” Mr. Bates added quickly. “And as head housemaid, Anna might be equivalent to a corporal.” 

“I think I understand now,” said Daisy. “But then wasn’t Thomas already sort of a corporal, as first footman?”

Mr. Carson sighed heavily. 

“Yes,” said Mr. Bates. “But now he’s one in the Army—sort of. Like how Mrs. Bird stepped in while Mrs. Patmore was away.”

“Or when Thomas stepped in as valet,” Miss O’Brien pointed out. Anna wondered if perhaps she was softening a bit toward Thomas, but then she added, “ _That_ didn’t last long.”

Mr. Bates said, “If they _are_ sizing him up a corporal’s stripe, one of the things they’ll be watching is how he handles going back down to Private. And if he makes too much of his little bit of authority, while he has it. That’ll be the tricky part, for him.”

That, Anna thought, was a detail she might try to find a way to pass along in her next letter. Thomas did do better when things like that were spelled out for him. 

#

_10 September, 1915_

_Dear Theo,_

_Yes, there’s rumors here about a big show in the works—but then, there always are._

A show, of course, was an offensive, or “push,” but at the moment, the censors weren’t letting either of those words through—which probably meant there _was_ something to the rumors. They’d had a Medical Officer and a few orderlies seconded away to other units, which made Thomas think the push wasn’t happening here—but you weren’t allowed to put something like that in a letter, in case the Germans got hold of it somehow. He went on,

_The only one I’ve really heard from is Reg—he’s in a quiet sector and is doing all right, except for having been shocked by all the licentiousness at the company baths._

Company baths could be a fairly tricky matter for their sort. You had to hand in your clothes to be fumigated first thing, so then you were standing around bollocks-naked, with everyone else bollocks-naked as well, waiting for your turn in a tub. And then stand around some more afterward, waiting for the clothes to be handed back out. There was a great deal of horseplay and lewd joking. 

Company baths were housed at the main dressing station, which meant if you worked there you had a bit more of an opportunity to make your own hygienic arrangements, but in turn you sometimes had to supervise the baths—which meant standing there fully clothed looking at a bunch of naked blokes, and sometimes shouting at the shyer ones to hurry up and take their kit off. 

Thomas did not find the spectacle a particularly erotic one, but he was always afraid someone would think he did. 

_I also had a field postcard from Joey—“quite well.” I’d sent him a few letters, so I suppose he doesn’t have time to write._

He hadn’t had a letter saying anyone had died since he got to France. He wasn’t sure if that was because no one had, or because Theo wasn’t passing news along as much as he always had. He’d been in a funk since Syl died, and his last letter had said that he was finally on his way back to his unit, after a long convalescence from his wound. 

_Being linen-wallah isn’t bad, as long as you know how to count. The hours are quite regular, and on days no convoy is expected, you can bugger off to your billet for a rest before dinner. I’m there now and quite cozy._

In fact, it was raining—nearly as heavily inside the barn as out—and he was sitting with his groundsheet wrapped round his shoulders and pulled over his head to protect the paper he was writing on. But if Theo was back at the Front when he got this, he’d envy the barn—and besides, this letter was meant to be cheering him up. 

_I’ve done carrying-parties twice now, both on quiet nights. The first time we just went to the collecting post, which is in about the third line back, and the other time up to the Regimental Aid Post. I have an idea where everything is now, is about all I can say about that._

The work hadn’t been particularly frightening—they _were_ quiet nights—but it was fairly depressing, trudging through filthy holes in the ground and knowing that scores of men had to live and work in them. It made you appreciate being far enough back to live above the surface of the Earth, even though the mud still got everywhere.

He was considering what to write next when Rawlins, one of his billet-mates, came in. He looked around with an expression of distaste, and said, “Blimey, I think it’s drier outside. Want to chum up?”

“All right,” Thomas said. That meant sharing your groundsheets, so that you both sat on one, and had the other over your heads. It was slightly more comfortable than going it on your own, where you had to decide whether it was more important to have the waterproof material under you or over you.

“You go up top,” Rawlins said. “Mine’s been folded up, so it’s still mostly dry. Here.”

He tossed Thomas a bundle of cord that he must have “organized” from somewhere—a useful article to have, when it came to chumming up, since if you were clever it could save you having to hold up the “roof” over your head. 

Once Thomas had unwrapped himself from his groundsheet, Rawlins took charge of tacking one end to the wall, just above head-level for a seated man, and Thomas used the cord to tie the other end to some nearby stanchions—or whatever they were; Thomas was proudly ignorant of agricultural furniture. Rawlins spread out his groundsheet on the barn floor, and they crawled inside and made themselves s comfortable as they could.

This type of shelter was _just_ large enough for two men to sit shoulder-to-shoulder, as long as you didn’t mind being pressed up against one another. Every time Thomas got into one, he was aware, at the back of his mind, that he could not allow himself to think of how pleasant it would be, if he was sharing one with Peter. 

Thomas got back to his letter, and Rawlins lit his pipe and got out a book. He didn’t seem able to keep his attention on it, though, and soon lowered it and said, “It’s going to be a real bugger if we’re still in this barn when winter comes.”

“Too right,” Thomas agreed. 

“I’ve looked round for something better, but every hole I can find has already got somebody living in it.” 

“P’raps they’ll give us tents,” Thomas said. “For winter.”

Rawlins frowned and waggled his hand from side to side. “This might keep the wind out better than a tent.”

Thomas elaborated, “We put the tents up _inside_ the barn.”

“Oh,” he said. “That’s not a bad idea.” 

“Haven’t figured out yet who I could suggest it to.” 

Rawlins returned to his book, and Thomas wrote a few lines disparaging the quality of the food they’d had lately. 

“The Wardmaster likes you,” Rawlins said suddenly.

It took Thomas a moment to realize he must be going back to the subject of who Thomas could tell his idea about the tents. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

“He made you a lance-corporal when you were only here a month,” Rawlins pointed out.

Thomas was trying not to make a thing out of that—Anna had pointed out in her last letter that the men who’d been here longer might feel just about the way he had about Bates swooping in and getting the valet job out of nowhere. “Just till we go back on wards.” Which was due to happen in about a week anyway. 

“Still.”

Thomas shrugged and lit a cigarette. When it seemed that Rawlins was done talking for the moment, he turned his attention back to the letter and wrote,

_I hope you’re managing all right._

That didn’t seem like quite enough, but he couldn’t think of anymore more to say, so just signed,

_Affectionately,_

_TB_

When he’d folded the letter, stuck it in the envelope, and addressed it, Rawlins tossed down his book again. “Bugger this,” he said. “Let’s go for a drink.”

Thomas considered this. The estaminets would be crowded and noisy and stinking of wet wool, but at least it wouldn’t be raining indoors. “Yeah, all right.” 

They buttoned up their tunics, found their caps, and set off. “Which place do you like?” Rawlins asked. “I think I might want something to eat, too.”

“Don’t really have a favorite yet,” Thomas said. He’d only been out a few times, each with a group that had a destination in mind. As far as he’d seen, all of the estaminets—little pubs-slash-cafes—were similar, except that some were also whorehouses and some weren’t. “I don’t have a lot of money,” he added. Some of the others had extra sent to them from home, and ate more often at estaminets than they did in the mess. Rawlins, with his vaguely middle-class accent, was probably one of those. 

“Well, Lily’s’ll do you an egg and chips and a glass of watered-down beer for under a shilling, with looking at the girls thrown in _gratis_ ,” Rawlins said. “Or you can go to Granny’s, where the only female in the place is about nine hundred years old and has hair on her chin, but for the same price you can get a jug of wine and a big plate of whatever she feels like cooking. I had some chicken stew there once that tasted like it had been seasoned by God himself.”

After pretending to consider it for a moment, Thomas said, “I think I fancy the one with the food. The ones with girls don’t really let you hang about for long unless you at least keep buying drinks, do they?”

“Too right,” said Rawlins. “This way.”

The estaminet was in the front room of a peasant cottage, with smoke-blackened timbers holding up the roof and scarred wooden tables crammed in cheek-by-jowl. Most of these were occupied, though Thomas didn’t see anyone he recognized. In addition to the 47th Ambulance, this area housed a munitions store, a rest camp, a transport depot, and a number of smaller military establishments, so there were always people coming and going. 

Rawlins spotted a free table, and they picked their way through a maze of tables, chairs, and outstretched legs to claim it. 

A little old man was likewise weaving his way through the room, depositing crockery pitchers on tables. When he got round to them, Rawlins said, “Bottle of plonk, and two plates danger.”

 _Plats de jour_ , surely, Thomas thought, but didn’t say. And plonk was _vin blanc_ to the civilized. Still, the man seemed to understand what they wanted, and held up his fingers to indicate what they owed. 

Once they’d paid up and the man had gone, Rawlins leaned back, lit his pipe, and asked, “Who are you always writing to, anyway? Got a girl?”

“No,” Thomas said, lighting a cigarette. “I write to lots of people. Mates, people from me old job, me sister.”

“Oh. Well, it’s nice getting letters. Gives you something to look forward to.”

“That’s why I do it,” Thomas agreed. It was why he always had, even back at Downton. “You?”

“Huh?”

“Girl,” Thomas clarified. 

“Oh—nah. Just as well, really. It only worries them, you being over here.”

Thomas had wondered a time or two if Rawlins might be a candidate for the Peculiars, but that sounded more like there _was_ a girl, but she didn’t fancy him back. “Too right,” he said. 

“How come you don’t usually go out with the lads, then, if you aren’t being true to your girl at home?”

Thomas shrugged. People did ask you personal questions like it was nothing, in the Army, he was finding. “I’m not really used to it,” he answered. “I was in service, back home, and you don’t come and go as you please. You get your half-day every other week, and that’s it.”

“Blimey,” said Rawlins. “Imagine going into the Army and having more free time than you’re used to.”

“What’d you do before the war?”

“Office boy,” said Rawlins. “My father’s a manager at a place that makes paper, so he got me a job there. Supposedly I’m being groomed for junior management, but I’m not as keen as they’d like me to be, so mostly I just fetch things and take notes at meetings.”

Thomas had been right about his class, then—middle class, but barely. “Doesn’t sound too interesting,” he said. “Won’t he let you do something else?” He’d heard that some people’s fathers were firm on the subject of them going into the family trade.

“He might if I had a decent idea of what I’d like to do instead,” Rawlins answered. “He was all for my joining up; hoped it would give me some direction in life.”

“Has it?” Thomas asked.

“Yeah—rearward.” He chuckled, adding, “I don’t really mind going up, of course.” 

You had to say that, Thomas knew, so you didn’t seem a coward. “Hasn’t been too bad the times I’ve gone,” he noted. 

“No. There was about a month in the late spring, that wasn’t good. When the Hun had their push up at Wipers.”

“We don’t get casualties from that far away, do we?” Thomas asked. Surely they’d be moved rearward, toward the base hospital, not down the line to a different sector’s Main Dressing Station. 

Rawlins shook his head. “When there’s a push, they do raids and smaller attacks all down the line, so the Kaiser can’t move all of his regiments to the big show.” The little old man brought their wine, and Rawlins sloshed it into two cups. “It’ll be like that with the one coming up.”

They talked about the upcoming push for a while, both agreeing that one was certain to happen soon—it had to, if they weren’t going to spend the next winter dug into more-or-less the same spots they’d spent the last one—but that it wouldn’t be happening here. They’d have noticed the buildup, if it was, and instead men and materiel were being moved _away_. Rawlins was mates with one of the men who’d been seconded to another unit, and knew that he’d gone to the 6th Ambulance, but not where it was posted. 

When they’d exhausted that subject, Rawlins asked, “Say—what was going through your head when you did that thing with the hand?”

Thomas shrugged. “I don’t know. It was ages ago.” Once or twice, when he’d been assigned to work with men he didn’t know, he’d noticed someone pointing him out to someone else as “the new chap who found the hand.” He wasn’t sure why it was considered such a memorable story; an amputation wasn’t a particularly gruesome wound.

“Well, we all thought it was bloody impressive,” Rawlins confided. “Especially coming from a new bloke. And then the way you played it off like it was nothing?” He made an admiring sound. “Some of the 1914ers thought you must have transferred in from a combat unit to be that cool-headed about it.”

1914ers were men who had joined up at the start of war, and who had been in France or Belgium by the end of 1914. While a considerable step below the Regular Army blokes in experience and prestige, they were an equally considerable step above the “new blokes,” which—outside of the barn, at least—included anyone who had come over in 1915, no matter how early in the year. “It was a lot less disgusting than cramming somebody’s guts back into his belly, or trying to bandage up a face with the jaw blown off,” he said. “And we all do that.”

“Well, sure,” said Rawlins. “But that’s usually middle of an emergency—your blood’s pumping, and you’ve got to do it right then if the poor bastard’s going to have any kind of a chance. It’s a bit different going off to have a rummage through a pile of severed limbs in between picking up the breakfast dishes and washing them.”

Thomas was fairly sure he’d washed the dishes first, but he supposed that didn’t matter. “It didn’t bother me.”

Rawlins looked skeptical about that, but Thomas wasn’t sure why. In any case, they dropped the subject when the little old man came back with their food. It was a bowl of soup and a sandwich each, and Thomas wondered if Rawlins had, perhaps, overstated the quality of the cooking here just a tad. 

It only took a bite of the sandwich to know that he hadn’t. It was a ham and cheese sandwich, but made on fried bread, and the cheese was some rich and gooey kind. “Blimey,” he said, once he’d swallowed.

“Try the soup,” Rawlins advised.

It looked like split pea, a kind Thomas didn’t particularly like, but it was _delicious_. Like eating green velvet, if green velvet was food and didn’t mostly taste like dust. “I want to marry this nine-hundred-year-old, hairy-chinned woman,” Thomas declared. 

“I’m pretty sure the waiter’s her husband,” Rawlins said. “Otherwise, you’d have to get in line.” 

They ate contentedly for a while, until Rawlins paused for breath and said, “Maybe keep this place under your hat, though, right? It’s crowded enough already.”

“Too right,” Thomas said. “I’m surprised the officers haven’t bagsied it.” When the officers decided they liked a place, they declared it off-limits to the other ranks. As far as Thomas could tell, he was the only one who was in the habit of drinking with his social superiors, and so no one else objected to this in principle—although they did object in the particulars, when an estaminet they liked was taken of bounds. 

“Rumor has it they’ve got one where the old lady is just as good a cook, but has a pretty granddaughter to boot,” Rawlins said. “But yeah, that’s another reason not to spread it around.”

Taking another bite of the heavenly sandwich, Thomas decided that if this place went on the forbidden list, he’d write to Branson for some Socialist pamphlets and stage a revolution. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> British and Commonwealth soldiers in the Great War were an astonishingly sweary lot. At the time, even mild swearing—“bloody” and so on—was taboo in respectable mixed company. The vast amounts of casual obscenity used in the all-male environment of the military may have served to distance the soldiers from their civilian identities, helping them to cope with the intolerable. Along with trench slang (which was extensive), it may also have helped to develop a sense of unified group identity among men who, in civilian life, would have spoken very differently from one another as a result of regional dialects and class status. For more on this topic, see this brief article at the British Library (https://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/swearing). The essay cited in its first paragraph is also good. 
> 
> In this chapter and the next few, we see Thomas and the others in his billet enthusiastically adopt the Wardmaster’s favorite word. 
> 
> Sources for this chapter, and others covering Thomas’s war experiences, include the Letters of Harold Chapin, Soldier and Dramatist (http://net.lib.byu.edu/estu/wwi/memoir/Chapin/ChapinTC.htm#TC) and _Observations of an Orderly"_ by Ward Muir, available on Project Gutenberg. Both are primary source documents by men who served in the RAMC. Chapin was an American playwright who was living in England when the Great War broke out. He joined the RAMC, served in an ambulance unit in France, and was killed at Loos. The Orderly who wrote the Observations was deemed physically unfit for overseas duty and served in a base hospital in London. I am indebted to him for the importance of linen-related paperwork, as well as for the vast quantities of cigarettes handed out to patients in military hospitals. 
> 
> (Content note about these sources: Muir, author of "Observations of an Orderly" devotes a chapter to an occasion when a minstrel show was put on to entertain patients at his hospital. He describes the entertainment in glowing terms, and repeatedly refers to it as an “N-word minstrel show.” One of the hazards of primary-source historical research is the casual racism that can just pop up without warning. My view on examples of historic racism is that they must be understood in context: I would not consider someone writing today to be a reliable source, even on unrelated matters, if they held such views, because today, you'd really have to _work_ at it to not know (or to pretend not to know) that minstrel shows and the n-word are offensive. While it was certainly possible for a white person in the 1910's to also arrive at that understanding, Muir's failure to do so does not reflect the same level of deliberate, willful ignorance that it would in a person a century later.
> 
> Oddly enough, Chapin, the Soldier-Dramatist, was also a fan of the minstrel shows (to the best of my recollection, the topic only comes up in the biographical sketch written by one of his friends). I also have a vague recollection of him saying something uncomplimentary about a Colonial service battalion, as well, but on a quick glance through the letters, I can't find it--it might have been someone else.)


	7. Chapter Five:  September, 1915

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas comes under fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Military violence, medical gore, minor character death. 
> 
> Historical note: To the best of my knowledge, there was no 47th Ambulance Unit in the RAMC. The designation is a nod to the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, in the Korean-war sitcom _M.A.S.H._

_24 September, 1915_

_Dear Anna,_

_The big battle that has been in all the papers is some distance up the line from us. However, there is some fighting in our sector, and we are busier than usual. I will write more when things let up a bit._

_Thomas_

#

“Bloody hell,” Thomas said, lifting his head and swiping mud out of his eyes—not very effectively, since his hands were filthier than his face. 

“That one were a bit close,” Corporal Jessop agreed. 

It had been close enough that the shower of dirt that sprayed upward when it landed had come down on them. “Is the bloke still alive?” Thomas asked. It was too dark to really see, except when a shell struck near enough to light the place up for a moment. 

Jessop wormed his way over to the stretcher that they’d put down quickly—dropped—when they hit the dirt, and check its occupant’s pulse. “Yeah. Better get on.”

They hoisted the stretcher and trudged on, zig-zagging their way through the narrow communication trenches. At least they were heading the right way—toward the rear. Several times they had to back up or duck into a dug-out to get out of the way of parties going the opposite direction: reinforcements, ration-carriers, ammunition-carriers, all sorts.

And other stretcher-bearers. The sight of them reminded Thomas that they’d only be going in the right direction until they got to the collecting post—once they’d handed over this casualty, they’d go back up for another one. 

You did get a bit of a breather, though, at the collecting post, if you were lucky, and this time they were. After they turned their stretcher-case over to the jammy bastards who were working on the motor ambulance—which could only go as far forward as there were roads to take it—Jessop searched out a corner out of the wind and lit a cigarette. “You holding up?” Jessop asked. 

Thomas knew that Jessop had been partnered with him to keep an eye on him—everyone who hadn’t been here for the spring pushes had been sent out with one of the corporals. So Thomas was a little self-conscious as he nodded, lighting a cigarette of his own. If it was like this here, he couldn’t imagine what it was like up at the big show—but he was holding up. There wasn’t actually another choice. “I’ll manage,” he said. 

“We’re starting to get on top of them,” Jessop said. 

He didn’t mean the Germans, of course. None of them had any idea how the actual _fighting_ was going. He meant that the number of stretcher-cases waiting for them at the front line was going down, meaning that they were carrying them back more quickly than new ones were being brought in from no-man’s land. “Good,” he said, and smoked some more. 

Both of them smoked their cigarettes down to the point where they were burning their fingers, but finally they couldn’t put it off any longer. They grabbed an empty stretcher and started forward.

After two or three more journeys to the front line and back, the terror of being blown to smithereens had resolved into a sort of steady thrum, as much a part of the background as the thunder of the guns, and Thomas found himself more absorbed by the sheer, back-breaking labor of it. A man was not a light burden to carry by anyone’s reckoning, and when you were lugging it through a muddy, winding ditch, in the pitch dark, your feet sliding out from under you every second step, you soon felt it in your shoulders, your back, your thighs. 

He found himself arriving at the Regimental Aid Post, already out of breath from carrying the empty stretcher. Someone was going round handing out rum rations, to orderlies and wounded alike, and Jessop snagged two mugs, handing one to Thomas and downing his own almost in the same motion. 

Thomas hesitated over it. Strong drink sometimes made him sleepy, which was the last thing he needed now. 

“You aren’t Methodist, are you?” Jessop asked.

Thomas shook his head, and took a sip of the rum. It burned on the way down, even worse than the paint-stripper he used to keep in his room at Downton. 

Jessop clapped him on the shoulder. “Take a breather, lad,” he said. “I should have a look at the walking wounded.”

He was probably, Thomas thought, supposed to insist that he was fine and could go with Jessop to check the walking wounded—he’d been paired up with an experienced man so that he could learn from him—but he couldn’t make himself do it. Instead, he said, “You sure?”

Jessop nodded, shoved his empty mug at Thomas, and left, so Thomas found the nearest out-of-the-way spot and fell over into it, just managing to keep his rum ration upright as he did. He sat slumped for a moment, just breathing, then pulled himself together and lit a cigarette. 

He was sitting with his elbows on his knees, smoking and dreading the walk back to the collecting post, when someone said, “ _Thomas_?”

His weary mind registered _officer_ before anything else, and he was halfway to his feet before he realized it was Mr. Matthew—Lieutenant Crawley—looking down at him. Which was even worse, really—Mrs. Hughes asked every time she wrote if he’d seen Mr. Matthew, and now here he was, and Thomas was sitting on his arse drinking. “Sir,” he said, wondering if he really _had_ to drop his cigarette and his rum.

“As you were,” said Lieutenant Crawley, quickly. “It is you,” he went on, leaning against the trench wall in a deliberately casual attitude, which Thomas decided was meant to signal that he was not required to stop smoking—though he did carefully set down his mug, and couldn’t help thinking about how Carson would react if he got wind that Thomas had _spoken to Mr. Matthew with a cigarette in his hand_. “Cousin Robert mentioned you were supposed to be around here somewhere.”

“Forty-seventh Ambulance, sir,” he said. “Our corporal’s just sorting out which casualty we take back next.” He hoped that that would convey that he had not been sitting here all night, and was, in fact, quite busy.

Lieutenant Crawley nodded. “I’m on my way to check on my wounded men. Walking wounded are that way, I think?” he indicated the direction Jessop had gone.

“Yes, sir.”

“Best be off, then. Good luck.”

Thomas was just getting settled back down again when there was a commotion from the other direction. You wouldn’t think anyone would take much notice of men shouting, what with all the shellfire and groans of pain and so on, but voices raised in anger was not really something you got much of, in a war, and everyone who was fit to do so craned their necks to see what was going on. 

Soon Dawlish, another man from the 47th, came trotting up. “Have you seen Sarge?”

“Which—”

“Either of them,” Dawlish said. 

Thomas shook his head. “Corporal Jessop’s gone to look at the walking wounded,” he suggested.

“He’ll have to do,” Dawlish decided, setting off that way. 

After a brief moment, Thomas decided he had better go too. The rum had bucked him up a bit, given him a second wind, so he was no longer quite so keen to hang about within range of the guns if it meant sitting down, and if Jessop got caught up in whatever Dawlish needed an NCO for, there was no telling how long it would be before he came looking for Thomas. 

He caught up to Dawlish about the same time that Dawlish found Jessop, who was squinting at an abdominal wound. “Corporal,” Dawlish said urgently. 

Jessop looked up at him.

“It’s Lamb,” he said. “He’s hit.”

Bloody hell. Lamb—Private Lamble—was one of theirs. One of the ones from Thomas’s training group, in fact. If Thomas remembered right, he’d had the bad luck to get paired with Diggs for the night’s work. Jessop said, “Stretcher case?”

Dawlish hesitated. “Don’t know, Corp. He went up and over with one of this lot, to pick one up.” Into no-man’s land, he meant, with one of the men from the regiment. He went on, “There was a shrapnel shell, and I think he’s still alive, but.” He stopped.”

“But?” asked Jessop. 

Dawlish blurted out, “But Diggs won’t go get him.” 

Thomas had seen it coming, a moment before Dawlish said it. “That fucking tosser.”

Dawlish glanced back at Thomas. “That’s why I wanted a sergeant.”

Jessop nodded. “Let’s go.”

The three of them set out, with Dawlish in the lead, taking a communication trench to the first line trench—the front of the Front. “Keep yer heads down,” Jessop reminded them, just before they entered the first line. “Barrow, that means even if you see an officer.”

If he told them back at Downton that he, Thomas Barrow, had a reputation for punctiliousness when it came to the military courtesies, they’d never believe him. (Of course, it helped that military courtesies grew more and more abbreviated the closer you got to the Front—otherwise he’d not have dared address Mr. Matthew _or_ Lieutenant Crawley with a cigarette in his hand.)

In the first line, it was too loud for much talking. In addition to the ever-present shelling and the odd burst of machine-gun fire from across no-man’s land, there was the rifle-fire from their own—the lucky bastards who weren’t tapped to go trench-raiding that night instead got to stand on the fire-step and peer over the edge, to shoot anything that moved and didn’t look like it was wearing a British uniform. 

The luckiest bastards of all got to stand behind _them_ , and hand them ammunition. 

Thomas and the others pushed their way through, Dawlish in the lead, until they got to where Diggs was huddled in a dugout. There were three or four wounded in there, and Diggs might have been quite legitimately tending them—but he wasn’t.

It was a big quieter in there, and Jessop said, his voice low and dangerous, “Where is he?”

Diggs extended his hand in the direction of the fire-step.

“Here,” said Dawlish, grabbing the trench periscope. “I’ll show you.”

Thomas trailed after them, not really wanting to be alone with Diggs. That kind of thing was contagious, they said. Cowardice. 

While Dawlish and Jessop were looking through the periscope, another man from the 47th turned up—Jenkins, or something like that. He must have been Dawlish’s stretcher-partner, because Jessop said something to them, pointing at the wounded in Diggs’s dugout. They grabbed one, and started back for the communication trench. 

Jessop got back up on the fire-step and looked through the periscope again. When he got down, he motioned for Thomas to join him in the dugout. 

“Is he still alive?” Thomas asked. He almost hoped he wasn’t. If he was dead, no one had to go out and get him.

“Think so,” Jessop said, with a nod. “Moving a bit. The other two are goners, though.” That would be the patient, and the man who’d been carrying the other end of the stretcher. Turning toward Diggs, he drew himself up as much as the low ceiling of the dugout would allow, and said, “On your feet.”

“You can’t,” said Diggs. “You’re a corporal, same as me.”

“I am,” said Jessop. “And I’m going out there to get the new lad you were supposed to be looking after.”

“I won’t,” said Diggs, shaking his head. “I won’t, and you can’t make me.”

“Diggs,” Jessop said, his voice terribly kind, “if you don’t, I’m gonna have to make a report. You get up off your arse now, and all right—you had a bit of a funny turn. Happens to enough of us. But you shook it off and got on with it. I won’t even ask why you weren’t out there with Lamb in the first place.”

“Bloke from the regiment wanted to go,” said Diggs. “It were his mate.”

“I’m no’ asking,” Jessop repeated. 

“No,” said Diggs, shaking his head. “I’m not going, and that’s final.”

Jessop drew in a deep breath. “You absolutely fucking sure about that, Diggs? Because we are in the face of the enemy here.”

Cowardice in the face of the enemy was a court-martial offense, with the punishment going all the way up to execution. Thomas wasn’t sure whether it made a difference that Jessop wasn’t his superior, and couldn’t technically give him an order—not when it was Diggs’s plain duty to go, whether anyone told him to or not.

“I won’t,” Diggs repeated. 

Shaking his head, Jessop turned away from him…and toward Thomas. “I really hate to ask, son,” he said. “But….”

“Let’s just get it over with,” Thomas said.

“Good man,” Jessop said, brushing the dirt off Thomas’s Red Cross armband. “We stay low, we grab him, we haul arse back.”

Thomas nodded, feeling sick. 

Before they went over the top, Jessop had him get up on the fire-step and look through the periscope at where Lamble was. “You see that shell-hole next to him?” Jessop asked, into his ear.

Thomas nodded.

“You hear rifle or machine-gun fire, jump in that and stay there till it stops.”

Thomas nodded again. 

“And keep behind me.”

Jessop started up the trench ladder. Thomas held his breath when his head went over the parapet, but there was no answering gunfire, and soon he was on his belly on the ground outside the trench, motioning for Thomas to hand the stretcher up, and then to come up after him. 

Thomas did. Once he was up, they picked up the stretcher and began a crouched-over run to Lamble’s position. They reached it without incident—unless you counted a shell hitting near enough to make Thomas wish he’d gone to the lavatory before they started. 

Jessop took a quick look at the other two—who were basically shredded—and then they rolled Lamble unceremoniously onto the stretcher and started back. They were ten yards or so from the parapet when Jessop shouted, “Down!” They hit the dirt, just in time for a bullet to pass overhead, followed by two more. 

Thomas’s breathing was loud in his ears, and quite suddenly—really, with no warning at all—he found himself vomiting. They’d been working half the night, with nothing to eat, so all he brought up was bile and rum. It tasted even worse than it had on the way down. 

He didn’t have much time to reflect on this development, because Jessop signaled to him, then got up into an even lower crouch than before, picking up his end of the stretcher. Thomas grabbed his, and they scuttled trench-ward, essentially throwing Lamble, and then themselves, over the parapet. 

Thomas lay on the duckboards for a moment, contemplating the fact that he’d apparently survived his first experience of direct enemy fire. Then there was a great deal of shouting, and he found himself being hauled to his feet and back into the dugout. He was only vaguely aware that the shouting was congratulatory in nature, and being delivered by members of the regiment, some of whom were also getting Lamble sorted out and bringing him into the dugout, too. 

Jessop was getting dressings out of his bag and leaning over Lamble. Thomas knew he ought to be helping him, but his feet went out from under him. He thought about a calming cigarette, but his hands were shaking too badly to unbutton the pocket he kept them in. 

Jessop glanced over at him. “Tha’s all right, lad,” he said. 

“Corp,” he heard himself saying, “I think I’m having one of those funny turns you mentioned.” Plenty of people had them, Jessop had said. So it was probably all right. 

“You think?” Jessop said, with a snort. “Tha’ picked a good time for it, I’ll say that. Diggs!”

Diggs crept over to him, like a dog expecting a beating. Jessop gestured towards the first-aid bag strapped to his chest, and Diggs gave it to him, sharpish. 

“Hold that,” Jessop said, pressing Diggs’s hand onto a dressing he’d applied somewhere on Lamble’s midsection. From Diggs’s bag, he took out a glass half-pint bottle, which he uncorked, then leaned over Lamble and handed to Thomas. “Got that? All right.”

It wasn’t any part of their kit that Thomas recognized, and Thomas looked dumbly at it, wondering what he was meant to be doing with it, until Jessop said, “Drink that up, now. Settle your nerves.”

Oh. Thomas did as instructed, finding that it was whiskey, and fairly decent whiskey at that. Diggs had drunk most of it himself, and by the time Thomas had polished off the rest—in two swigs—he did feel a bit steadier. “What do you want me to do now, Corp?”

“Smoke a bloody cigarette,” Jessop answered, and shouted at Diggs for more dressings.

Thomas wasn’t sure if he was being sarcastic or not, but when no real orders followed, he slowly unbuttoned the pocket where his cigarettes were. By concentrating very carefully on what he was doing, he was able to get one out and light it, only dropping the lighter once. 

Mr. Matthew seeing him sitting and drinking didn’t seem so bad anymore—at least he wasn’t seeing him sitting, drinking, _and panicking_. 

When he’d got about halfway through his cigarette, Jessop growled, “Watch him,” at Diggs, and came over to sit against the wall with Thomas. “All right, then?”

Thomas nodded. 

“We’ll have us a bit of a breather, then take Lamb back,” he said, lighting a cigarette of his own. 

Thomas nodded again. “Is he….”

“Gut wound,” answered Jessop. “It’s bad.”

“Oh.”

“We’ll take him all the way back,” Jessop went on. “Sooner he gets into theater, the better.”

“Sorry,” Thomas said. They’d be getting him back a bit sooner if Thomas wasn’t having a funny turn.

“Naw, tha’s all right,” Jessop said. “Tha held it together till we got th’ job done; that’s t’main thing. ‘t’ain’t bad at all for your first go-round. Not bad at all.”

Thomas squinted at him. “Are you from Yorkshire?” He wasn’t talking quite broad enough to be taking the piss. 

“Dodworth,” Jessop answered. “Not for a long time, though,” he added, his accent sliding back toward the nondescript one Thomas was used to hearing from him—the one most of the Regular Army blokes had.

“Sheffield,” he said. 

“I thought I heard a bit of the old ground,” Jessop said. “When you’re not talking like you just stepped out of a bloody public school.”

“I was in service,” Thomas explained. “And I worked in London for a while.”

He wondered, later, if Jessop had put on the accent on purpose. It was all right if he had, Thomas decided, because coming from an honest-to-God Yorkshireman, “not bad at all” and “got the job done” was very nearly the equivalent of a Distinguished Conduct Medal. (“No’ a bad worker” would, of course, be a Victoria Cross.)

Jessop’s praise made the walk back to the collecting post seem shorter—as did the fact that Diggs was trailing along behind them like a whipped dog and took over one end of the stretcher whenever Jessop told him to, and the knowledge that they wouldn’t be going up again. 

At the collecting post, an ambulance had just left, so there was a bit of a wait for the next one. Jessop was soon deep in conference with one of the sergeants about Lamble’s wound, so Thomas, feeling surplus to requirements, sloped off around the side of the hut for a smoke. 

A few moments into it, Rawlins joined him. “What happened there?” he asked.

“Lamb got hit,” Thomas said. “Shrapnel shell.”

“No, there,” Rawlins said, gesturing with his chin in the direction of Diggs, who was standing near the hut door at something vaguely resembling attention.

“He wouldn’t go out in no-man’s land and get him,” Thomas explained. 

“Fuck,” Rawlins swore. “But he did eventually?”

Thomas shook his head. “Jessop gave him every chance—told him he wouldn’t make a thing of it if he got on with it.”

“So …?”

“So now I guess he’s got to make a thing of it.”

“Fuck,” Rawlins said again. “Lamb was one of the ones that came over with you, wasn’t he?”

Thomas nodded. “We weren’t mates, particularly.”

“What was he doing out in no-man’s land without Diggs?”

“That,” Thomas said, “is one of the questions Jessop said they wouldn’t have to be asked if Diggs went out and got him.”

“Oh,” said Rawlins, nodding. “But what I meant was, who did bring Lamb in?”

Thomas hesitated. “Me and Jessop,” he said quickly.

“How’d that go?”

“Well, I managed not to piss meself, thanks.” He decided he didn’t have to mention the vomiting, since he’d managed not to get any of it on himself. 

“That’s always good,” Rawlins noted. 

“Was a bit wobbly when we got back in,” he admitted. “Just for a minute.”

“Well, as long as it was _after_ ,” Rawlins said. 

“That’s what Jessop said.” 

When the next ambulance came, Lamble was loaded on first, amid a chorus of solemn murmurings. 

The 47th hadn’t lost a man since Thomas had arrived—and, he’d learned from Rawlins, they hadn’t lost very many before that, either. In fact, several of the vacancies their respective drafts had been sent to fill had, in fact, been the result of transfers, just as Bates had comfortingly suggested to Daisy before he’d left Downton. 

As a result, not even the more experienced men of the 47th were inured to the prospect of losing one of their own. People kept asking “how?”—and every time they did, Diggs looked even more sick with shame, which Thomas supposed was fair enough.

Even the walking wounded, who presumably were more used to sudden and reasonless death, caught the general mood. An ambulance journey back to Main Dressing was never a jolly occasion, but this one was positively funereal. 

“D’you know who his particular mates are?” Jessop asked at one point.

Thomas shook his head. “I think he pals around with the Methodists—he did in training anyway. But he were a Quaker.”

“Is,” said one of the others, sharply, and for a crazed second, Thomas thought he was correcting his grammar. 

“Is a Quaker,” Thomas agreed, once he’d realized what the man meant. 

When they got back to the Station, Thomas and Jessop took Lamble into surgical prep, and began cutting his uniform off him. They’d finished, and were sluicing him down with a couple of buckets of water, when one of the MO’s came in. He examined Lamble’s wound and said, “We’ll take him next.”

Jessop and Thomas finished cleaning him up—in the rough-and-ready way that you did, here—and the two orderlies posted to the operating theater whisked him away. 

One of the prep-room orderlies started picking up Lamble’s clothes. “What should I--?” He looked at the pile of bloody rags in the corner, where they were throwing all the patients’ things, and then at Jessop. You were supposed to keep the kits separated, so that personal effects could be recovered later, but no one expected that nicety on a night like tonight.

At least, no one in the RAMC did. 

“Here,” Jessop said, reaching for an instrument tray. “Bung ’em in there; we’ll sort it out later.”

After that, there was no more time to think about Lamble for a while, because a wagonload of walking wounded showed up, and there was plenty of work to go ‘round: helping them out of the wagon, sorting out which ones had better have a Medical Officer look at them right away, and then, for the ones who could wait, finding them an empty spot to sit down and supplying them with tea and cigarettes. 

Once that was all finished and relative calm reigned once more, Jessop found him and said, “Come on, lad, let’s get us a cuppa before the next lot gets here.”

Thomas let himself be herded to the orderlies’ room. When they got there, they found Diggs manning the kettle and slapping together jam sandwiches. He came up to them with several on a plate, and held it out, hand shaking slightly.

Thomas almost felt sorry for him. He knew what it was like to fuck up so badly there was nothing you could do to fix it, but still have to embarrass yourself trying. But he stood there, blank-faced, waiting to see what Jessop would do.

Finally, the corporal reached out and grabbed a sandwich. Diggs’s relief was palpable—though almost certainly misplaced, Thomas thought. But he was as hungry as the next bloke, and took a sandwich too.

He sat down to eat it, which could have been a mistake, as he found himself far from certain he’d be able to get up again, bone-weary as he was. But when the next ‘bus came in, and everyone—except Diggs—went out to meet it, Thomas found himself swept along by the tide. 

It was like drill, he thought. You switched off your mind and did what everybody else was doing. 

By dawn, they’d turned the tide. Wounded were coming in by ones and twos—and even that not very frequently—and a convoy arrived from the Casualty Clearing Station to take the first lot of them away.

With that, the day-shift men were dismissed until it was time for the convoy to come back for another load of patients, in about three hours’ time. In the ordinary way of things, it would be nearly time for the day men to be coming on duty, but word had come from on high that the night shift—who had at least been fresh when the night’s grueling labor had started—would stay on to handle the morning chores. 

Thomas contemplated the walk to the barn—it took at least a quarter-hour to walk there when you _weren’t_ dead on your feet, and the same back. He’d curl up in a corner of the orderlies’ room, he decided.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t the first one to have had that idea. All of the corners were occupied, and spaces along the walls. There was even somebody under the table. Thomas was eyeing the spot in front of the cooker—you’d be stepped on, sure, but might it be worth it?—when he had a better idea.

The linen-room was empty, except for the linen. With a groan of satisfaction, he shrugged out of his tunic and webbing, and collapsed gracelessly onto the floor. After taking a moment to wrench his boots off, he rolled under the folding-and-sorting table, where he’d be partly hidden and mostly out of the way if anyone wanted linen. 

He was almost asleep when he heard the door open. “Fuck. Wait—Barrow, is that you?”

“I will murder you,” Thomas said.

“Budge up,” said Rawlins, dropping his own gear.

Thomas budged up. Rawlins crawled in next to him, and Thomas barely had time to register that he stank of blood and mud, and hadn’t bothered taking his boots off, when sleep snuck up behind him and clobbered him on the head. 

#

Thomas woke, not quite three hours later, to the Wardmaster’s dulcet tones: “Every bugger up! Come on, you fuckers—convoy’s coming.”

He groaned and shoved Rawlins, who had at some point appropriated Thomas’s left arm for use as a pillow. Sitting up, he shook the afflicted arm to restore circulation, noting as he did so that Rawlins was also the sort of bloke who drooled on his pillow.

Well, his clothes had seen worse, the night before. 

It occurred to him, belatedly, that if he _had_ gone back to the barn, he’d at least have been able to change into his less-filthy set of clothes. But there was nothing for it now, and since it seemed quite a few of them had slept here, he wouldn’t be the only one still wearing yesterday’s dirt.

Still, he decided, when he picked up his tunic and was treated to a scattering of dried and flaking mud, the first order of business was to have a wash—and at some point, he was going to have to sweep up in here, and find a better place to put his webbing. 

After lacing on his boots, he nudged Rawlins with the toe of one, said, “Better get up,” and left in search of water and soap. 

The more conventional washing-places being occupied, he wound up at the pump in the service yard—the one the transport men used to water their horses. No one else was using it at the time, but it was clear that others had, and one of them had left a cake of soap and an extremely grubby towel for the benefit of the next user. 

They hadn’t left a razor, unfortunately, but he was at least able to wash the worst of the grime off his face, hands, and arms. After drying off with the section of towel he judged least likely to undo his recent efforts, he turned his attention to his tunic. 

He was brushing it vigorously—with what he strongly suspected was a horse-brush—when Rawlins turned up, tunic unbuttoned and boots unlaced, carrying two cups of tea. “There you are,” he said, handing Thomas one. 

“Ta,” Thomas said, and drank half of it in one draft. 

“What are you doing?” Rawlins asked, squinting at him.

“Brushing my tunic.” It was about as good as it was going to get, he decided, and put it on, saying, “Here, I’ll do yours while you wash.”

Rawlins shrugged out of his tunic and gave it to him. “Wouldn’t have thought of that.”

“I used,” Thomas said grimly, “to want to be a valet.” That dream seemed very far away, now. 

Rawlins took his turn under the pump. “Christ that’s cold.”

“Wakes you up a bit,” Thomas suggested, still brushing. Rawlins’s tunic was less muddy than his own, but more bloody. While bloodstains were certainly not beyond the reach of Thomas’s valeting skills, he was at a loss to do anything about them using only a horse-brush, so once Rawlins had emerged from under the pump and put his shirt back on, he held up the tunic for him to put on.

Rawlins clearly had no idea how to go about being dressed, so it was a bit of a farce, but once it was on, Thomas said, “There, now you can say you’ve been valeted by the same hands that have valeted dukes and earls.” Only one of each, technically, but the plural sounded grander.

“That’s something to write home about,” Rawlins said, doing up his buttons.

Thomas swigged down the rest of his tea while getting his own shirt and tunic on, and asked, “Was there any food, where you got that?”

“Bread and cheese,” Rawlins said. “I didn’t have a free hand to carry any.”

“Convoy’s not here yet,” Thomas pointed out.

They trooped inside, and had just enough time to grab some food before the convoy _was_ there. 

The rest of the day, Thomas was run off his feet. It was true that the night shift men had handled the essentials on the wards that morning—but only the essentials. After they’d loaded the convoy, he reported to Officers’ Medical—the Wardmaster had not been kidding about assigning him to the officers when he went back on wards—and found veritable mountains of things waiting to be washed in both the scullery and the sink room. 

He got the scullery, which was by far the less disagreeable of the two—the sink room being where bedpans were dealt with—but also meant that he had to keep an ear out for a shout of “Orderly!” and then hurry back into the ward proper and say “Yes, sir?”

Once he’d managed to finish the washing up—interrupted three times by requests for tea, twice for cigarettes, and once for an update on the wounded men from the officer’s platoon—it was time to do dressing changes, and after that the ward’s Medical Officer came in to do his morning rounds, during which time the ward-orderlies were meant to stand there and look alert, on the off chance that the MO had a question or instruction for them. 

Rounds took longer than usual this morning because the ward was full—in fact, there were six extra patients on stretcher-beds in the aisles—and because the new patients had been only hastily examined and treated so far. By the time the MO dismissed them, they were just in time to run down to the orderlies’ mess and grab the last crumbs left from lunch as it was being cleared away.

And so on for the rest of the day. Alongside the work ran an equally breathless rush of gossip—which, along with tea and cigarettes, was what the station ran on—mostly concerning Lamble and Corporal Diggs. The two things Thomas was sure of were that Lamble had died a few hours after leaving surgery, which he knew because everyone’s sources were agreed on this point, and that Diggs had spent the middle part of the day out back with the Service Battalion, digging a grave—which Thomas knew because he had nipped out for a cigarette and seen him doing it. 

About everything else, rumors flew with abandon. Lamble would have made it, if he’d been gotten into surgery just a bit earlier. Lamble was already a goner from the moment the shrapnel hit him. Diggs had ordered him out into no-man’s land. Lamble had volunteered to go, when Diggs refused. Diggs was in the guardroom, weeping inconsolably and begging forgiveness from God and anyone who would listen. Diggs had buggered off to an estaminet and didn’t give a shit. Diggs was now considered unreliable and was being sent rearward, the lucky bastard. Diggs was due to be shot tomorrow at dawn, the poor bastard. If Diggs _wasn’t_ shot tomorrow at dawn, a dozen or so of Lamble’s self-appointed mates were going to beat the living shit out of them. (Hearing this last, Thomas said, “Do these mates of his know he was a Quaker? Only I’m not sure it’s what he would want; I’m just saying.”)

By tea-time, word had gotten round that Thomas had been there when it happened, and from then on, he couldn’t show his face outside the ward without being asked to confirm or deny this or that rumor. Most of the time, all he said was “I don’t know; I wasn’t there for that part,” which was usually true.

Before dinner, they were told to form up in the ambulance yard, which did double duty as a parade-ground. As they were doing so, a fellow named Morris asked, “Is it true that Jessop borrowed an officer’s sidearm and said he’d shoot Diggs himself if he didn’t go out and get Lamb?”

“I don’t kn—” Thomas began automatically, before realizing that he _was_ there for that part. “No, he did not do that.”

“Oh.” Morris looked disappointed. 

“He did remind him we were in the face of the enemy, and that he’d have to make a report,” Thomas added. 

“That sounds more like Jessop,” said someone else. “But—”

“Ten- _shun_!” shouted the Wardmaster, and everyone shut up and snapped to. 

The Chief Medical Officer, a Major Thwaite, strode out. He was about fifty, a small man in glasses. He’d never spoken to Thomas, or to anyone he knew, but all the medical officers snapped to attention when he entered a ward, and spoke of him with the same awe that the orderlies did the Wardmaster.

“Stand easy,” the Wardmaster said, and they all moved into parade rest. Thomas was acutely conscious of his filthy and unshaven state, and was only glad he was in the middle of the group. 

After a few remarks about the previous night being a difficult one and good work under trying conditions, Thwait said, “It is my sad duty to make known to you that we have lost one of our own. Private Christopher Lamble has died, of wounds received in the performance of his duties.” 

Even though there can’t have been anyone at the station who didn’t already know it, there was an audible gasp at the announcement, followed by murmurs. 

“Ten- _shun_!” the Wardmaster shouted again, and they all shut up and came to attention again. 

Thwait continued, “A brief service will be held at the graveside on Sunday, that is to say tomorrow, immediately following the regular chapel service. Any man who does not ordinarily attend the Methodist service, but wishes to be excused from duty for this purpose, should speak to his section corporal.”

He nodded to the Wardmaster, who shouted “Dis- _missed!”_ , and they all headed in to dinner.

While Thomas was making his way there, Rawlins caught up with him. “What do you suppose they do, at a Quaker funeral?” he wondered.

“Don’t know,” said Thomas. “I suppose they speak if the spirit of God moves them.”

Rawlins, who had been there that day, huffed. 

Dinner was the usual stew made of bully-beef, but there was plenty of it, along with decent local bread and butter. Thomas ate heartily, and that—along with the chance to sit down for more than a minute at a stretch—allowed the weariness of the day to sneak up on him. 

That was a damn shame, because he had at least another hour and a half of work ahead of him, getting the patients on his ward settled in for the night—and that was if the evening’s intake of new patients was light.

Even when things were quiet at their bit of front, they got a batch of casualties around this time of day, it being safer to move them to the rear under cover of darkness. For about a week they’d been getting more than usual, ambulance-loads growing into convoys, and keeping everyone at their posts for an extra hour, then two, then three, culminating in the nightmare of last night.

Now, Thomas felt like crying at the thought of even a couple of hours’ extra work, and if they had another night like the last one—or, somehow, even worse—he wasn’t sure how he’d live through it. 

Everyone else clearly felt the same way. When one of the corporals called for order and announced, “Ambulances en route from the collecting post,” there was a chorus of groans and muttering. 

The groans turned into a ragged cheer when the corporal continued, “With four blessed patients on ‘em!” 

_Oh thank God_. Things were getting back to normal. The thought of getting a full night’s sleep was enough to get him back on his feet and on his way back to Officers’ Surgical. 

He was handing out medications, and about halfway down his side of the ward, when Jessop came in. “Barrow—Wardmaster wants to see you.”

_Fuck_. Not only was that going to put him behind on his work, but _what the hell did the bloody Wardmaster want with him_? He couldn’t think of anything he’d done, unless it was looking disgraceful at parade—and plenty of the others had looked worse. 

“I’ll take over here,” Jessop said, kindly. 

That was one load off his mind. “Thanks.” He hesitated. “Did he say why?” he asked, wondering if he ought to take a moment to try and make himself slightly more presentable. 

“That business last night,” Jessop said, with a glance at Hawkins, who was trying to look like he wasn’t eavesdropping. 

Oh, that. Jessop _had_ said he’d be making a report. 

He hurried along to the Wardmaster’s room, wondering whether there was some way to find out if Jessop had happened to mention that Thomas had had a tiny bit of trouble, after they brought Lamble in. He probably hadn’t. 

He braced up in front of the Wardmaster’s desk, but only for a moment, before the Wardmaster was waving him into a chair, saying, “We’re not on fucking parade.” Leaning back in his own chair and puffing on a pipe, he said, “I need you to take me through this shit-show with fucking Diggs last night. What he said and did, what Corporal Jessop said and did. Understand?”

“Yes, si—Sergeant.” 

“And don’t worry about dropping him in the fucking shit, ‘cause he’s already in it. Right now, we’re just talking, but if he fights this thing, you’re gonna have to say it again under oath, and we don’t want any fucking _discrepancies_.”

“Yes, Sergeant,” Thomas repeated. The Wardmaster made a _get on with it_ sort of gesture, and Thomas said, “Er…where do you want me to start? When we got to where Diggs was?”

“When you first became aware there was something fucking unusual going on,” the Wardmaster answered. 

The whole night had been unusual, as far as Thomas was concerned, but he supposed he knew what the Wardmaster meant. “Well, Corporal Jessop and I were at the Aid Post, when Dawlish came running up looking for a sergeant. He said that Lamb—Private Lamble—was in no-man’s land, and he’d been hit, and Diggs wouldn’t go after him.”

“All right,” said the Wardmaster, nodding.

“So we went up to the front-line trench. Corporal Jessop, Dawlish, and me, that is. Dawlish showed us where Diggs was, in a dugout with some wounded. He was just sitting there, I mean. He wasn’t looking after them or anything, as far as I could see.

“Jessop asked him where Lamble was, and he pointed out towards the parapet. Dawlish got a periscope somewhere, and they went and looked.”

“They?”

“Dawlish and Corporal Jessop. I went with them.” Thomas remembered the sick feeling of not wanting to be near Diggs any longer than he had to. 

“Where was Diggs?”

“He stayed in the dugout.”

The Wardmaster made a note. “All right.”

Thomas went on, “After Dawlish showed Corporal Jessop where Lamble was, he left to get on with carrying back wounded. Jessop and I went back in the dugout, and Jessop said he was going out to get Lamble. Diggs said he wouldn’t go.”

“Do you remember whether or not Diggs said anything that might indicate whether or not he knew that Lamble was still alive?”

Thomas started to shake his head, then stopped. “Well, I asked Corporal Jessop, if he was, and Jessop said he thought so. I don’t remember Diggs saying anything about it, but he was right there.” 

“Do you remember what words Jessop used, when he spoke to Diggs at that point?”

“Not exactly. It was—chaotic. It was something about going out to get the lad Diggs was supposed to be looking after.” 

“Did he tell Diggs to go with him?”

Thomas remembered Diggs saying, _you’re a corporal, same as me_ , and understood why the Wardmaster was asking. “Not in so many words. Diggs reminded Jessop that they were of the same rank, and Jessop tried to, you know, chivvy him along. Said something about how anybody could have a funny turn in a situation like that, but he had to move past it. Diggs said again that he weren’t going.” 

“Did Jessop say anything else, to try to persuade him, that you remember?”

Thomas nodded. “He reminded him that we were in the face of the enemy.” 

“Do you happen to remember if he used those exact words? ‘In the face of the enemy’?”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“Are you absolutely fucking sure?”

“Yes, Sergeant,” Thomas repeated. “I remembered the phrase from training, and I recognized it when he said it.”

“And how did Diggs fucking respond?”

Thomas thought for a moment, then shook his head. “I’m not sure. I know he didn’t go, obviously, but….” 

The Wardmaster’s eyes bored into him.

“I wasn’t exactly keen on going, either, Sergeant. All that really registered was that he wasn’t going to change his mind.” 

“Do you remember what Corporal Jessop said to you?”

“He showed me Lamble’s position, through the trench periscope, and gave me some advice about staying low. Pointed out a shell-hole where we could take cover if there was any trouble.”

“Anything else?”

Thomas thought. “I think he said something encouraging. I couldn’t say what.”

“Did he, at any point, directly order you to leave the fucking trench and assist him in retrieving Private Lamble?”

Thomas’s guts went cold. He hadn’t, had he? Was he supposed to have had? Was Thomas supposed to have waited for him to have done? “Not that I recall, Sergeant.” 

The Wardmaster stared at him again. 

“Um, like I said, I wasn’t keen…I just wanted to get it over with.” Perhaps he ought to have said that he didn’t want to leave Lamble lying out there any longer than necessary. But that hadn’t been on his mind at all. “So I’m not sure what he said, or what I said, or anything.”

“All right,” said the Wardmaster. “Just out of fucking curiosity, were you still in front of Diggs when you and Jessop talked about going out after Lamb?”

“I think so,” Thomas said. “Part of it. I mean, we started talking about it, and then we went out to the fire-step to look through the periscope.”

The Wardmaster shook his head. “That fucking tosser. All right—that’s everything I need about the night in question.”

Thomas was glad he was stopping there; that meant he wouldn’t have to decide what to say about his own “funny turn.” Anticipating that he was about to be dismissed, he asked, “Sergeant?”

“Yeah?”

“What is going to happen to Corporal Diggs?”

“He isn’t going to be a fucking Corporal for much longer, you can bet on that,” the Wardmaster said. He studied Thomas for a moment, then stood up. 

Thomas, of course, popped to his feet instantly. 

The Wardmaster sighed, shook his head, and bent down to open a file drawer. Taking out a bottle, he gestured with it toward the other half of the room, and said, “Come on, lad.”

Thomas went and, at the Wardmaster’s invitation, sat gingerly on one of the armchairs in front of his fireplace. The Wardmaster fumbled around on the low table that sat between the chairs until he found some glasses. After pouring a stiff measure into one of them, he paused and said, “You aren’t Methodist, are you?”

“No,” Thomas said, biting of the “sergeant,” as it was fairly clear by now that he was not getting a bollocking. 

The Wardmaster poured a second drink, and handed it to Thomas. “Armagnac,” he said. “French, but it’s not bad.”

It was damn good Armagnac, too. 

After drinking down half of his, the Wardmaster said, “It’s shite, punishing a man for being scared of dying. We all know it’s shite. But the thing is, you can’t run a war if every bugger gets to decide for himself whether he’s willing to die or not. You get that, right? I mean, why’d you go, seein’ as you weren’t fucking _keen_ on it?”

Thomas pondered the wisdom of admitting that he had not considered that he had a choice. He was fairly sure that the Wardmaster did not mean to suggest that he actually _had_ , so there wasn’t much point in saying that. “Somebody had to do it. And there wasn’t anybody else there.” If there had been, Thomas would have waited to see if somebody else would volunteer. 

“There you fucking go,” said the Wardmaster. “It’s all right not to want to. It’s all right to _hope_ some other bugger gets the fucking job. But if you’re the bugger what gets it, you have to fucking do it. Otherwise, you’re letting down your mates. That’s why those fuckers in the Pee-Bee-Eye go over the fucking top when they’re told.”

PBI, Thomas knew, was Poor Bloody Infantry. 

“ _Nobody_ wants to. You go, because you’re more scared of letting down your mates than you are of getting shot at.” He poured himself another drink, lifting the bottle in Thomas’s direction. Thomas still had half of his first one left, and shook his head. “The thing about Diggs is that he’s too fucking used to letting down his mates. He’s always been like that, and you can live with it in garrison. There are plenty of fucking work-shy Corporals in the peace-time Army. But in war? In the face of the fucking enemy? That shit gets good men killed.”

He knocked back his drink and continued, “I should have nipped it in the fucking bud the day we got here. I could have done it last month, when he pulled that fucking stunt, leaving you with the linen delivery when you’d been here ten fucking minutes. If I’d hauled him up on charges right then, we might not be in this fucking mess.” He shook his head. “You saved that filthy fucker’s life, you know.”

How? “Sergeant?”

“They could shoot him, for what he did. It doesn’t matter that Jessop had no right to order him—it was his plain duty, in the face of the fucking enemy. And he refused to do it. Three times at least, the fucking Judas. But if you’d taken a look at that bloke old enough to be your fucking Dad refusing to do his fucking job, and said, ‘if he ain’t doing it, fuck if I am,’ well then he’d have been sowing fear in the ranks. Jessop wasn’t going to make you do it—if you hadn’t stepped up, he’d have gone looking for somebody else, and before he did, every bugger in that fucking trench would have had time to think ‘If that son of a bitch gets to say no, why can’t I?’ They’d have _had_ to shoot him, to get that thought out of every bugger else’s head.” 

“I see,” said Thomas. 

The Wardmaster poured again, and this time Thomas accepted the offer of a refill. “This isn’t to spread around—we want him and everybody else to fucking stew in the possibilities for a couple of days—but they’ll offer him summary punishment. Busted back to private, and a month or so of Eff-Pee-fucking-One.”

Field Punishment One was the thing O’Brien had been talking about, where they tied you to a post. It wasn’t supposed to be done in range of enemy fire, but everyone knew of a bloke who knew of a bloke who had seen it done that way. You did a couple of hours of that every day, and the rest of your time you spent on fatigues—the worst ones anybody could think of. Digging graves, for example. “That seems fair enough,” Thomas said. 

“It’s a fucking gift,” the Wardmaster said. “It’s what I should have done a month ago. But I thought making him switch jobs with a fucking new bloke might knock some sense into him.” He picked up the bottle, considered it for a moment, and put the cap back on. “That’s not to spread around, either. Can’t have everyone knowing the fucking Wardmaster fucked up. I shouldn’t be fucking telling you, except I know you can keep your fucking mouth shut. If you couldn’t, every bugger in this shithole would be talking about how one of the fucking new blokes had to go out and get Lamb while Diggs was fucking wetting himself.”

“I did tell Rawlins,” Thomas admitted. “He’s one of my billet-mates.”

“You can tell any bugger you want to; that part’s not a fucking secret.” He picked up the bottle, opened it again, and poured another drink. “At any rate, you’re Lance-Corporal Cleaning Up Diggs’s Fucking Mess again—congratulations.” He raised his glass.

Thomas wasn’t sure if he was referring to his inadvertently saving Diggs’s life, or if he was literally being made lance-corporal again. It seemed an important distinction, so he asked “Sergeant?”

“You’re taking over his fucking duties again,” the Wardmaster clarified. 

Oh. “Is it the linen again?” That wouldn’t be so bad—it wasn’t interesting work, but after the week he’d had, he wouldn’t mind a dull job.

But the Wardmaster shook his head. “He’s Night-Corporal in D Block. You’ll be fine. Those are the easiest fucking wards, for night duty—that’s why he had them—and Jessop’s on C Block, so he’ll be right there if you need a hand.”

It wasn’t the _work_ Thomas was worried about—although he might get around to that later. He was stuck on the fact that it was a _night_ shift. He didn’t mind night shifts, except that he’d been up for all but three of the last thirty-six hours, and he didn’t have the first idea how he’d get through twelve more. He felt sort of like crying. “Yes, Sergeant,” he said, trying to keep his voice level.

“You’ve worked in all those wards before,” the Wardmaster reminded him.

Thomas nodded. D Block was Officers’ Sick, Officers’ Convalescent, Mens’ Sick, and Mens’ Convalescent, all of which would be operating as normal. The Medical and Surgical wards—the ones that dealt with wounds—were the ones that would be particularly challenging due to the recent activity at the Front. 

“Under you, you’ve got Watts, Taylor, and Palmer. They’re all decent, steady blokes.”

They were also all more experienced than he was—the easy way you could tell was that none of them lived in the fucking barn. Thomas considered whether there was any way to ask exactly how much they were going to resent him being leapfrogged up over their heads. 

“And the MO on call is Allenby. He’s young enough and keen enough he won’t get too fucking out of sorts if you wake him up for an emergency that fucking isn’t.”

“Yes, Sergeant,” Thomas agreed. It would be all right—once he got through tonight.

“Report a couple of hours early tomorrow—the day bloke’ll show you the fucking ropes.”

“Yes, Serg—I don’t have to do it tonight?”

The Wardmaster stared at him. “I’m not a fucking sadist. Diggs has been sitting on his fucking arse in the guardroom all day; he can do it tonight. Christ. No. Finish up on your fucking ward, and report back tomorrow around tea-time.”

“Yes, Sergeant,” said Thomas, gratefully. Even counting in that he’d inevitably be woken up when everybody else got up, he’d get at least ten hours’ sleep. It was going to be glorious.

When he got back to the ward, Jessop had nearly finished getting the patients settled in. As they finished the last round of bedpans, Thomas eyed him, wondering if he’d known that Thomas was being made a lance-corporal again. 

If he did, he gave no sign of it. Once the work was done, Thomas started back for the billet—this time, taking the direct route. He needed sleep more than he needed solitude. 

He hoped that everyone else would feel the same way, but when he got there, everyone was sitting up and talking quietly. It was definitely more subdued than most evenings, but it didn’t look like they were planning to go to bed—or bedroll—early. He picked his way to his spot, acknowledging nods and muttered greetings as he went. 

Rawlins, he noticed, had spread out his bedroll a little further than usual from the bloke on the other side. Thomas did the same, so there wasn’t an obvious gap where Lamble’s place had been. He’d lit a cigarette and was taking off his boots when Rawlins said, “How’re you holding up?”

“I’m so tired I could die,” Thomas said. “But I just got switched to nights starting tomorrow.”

“I meant about Lamble,” Rawlins explained. 

Thomas shrugged. “It’s a fucking shame.” 

Rawlins and the others nearby nodded and said things like, “Too right.”

They all looked expectantly at him for a moment. Thomas wondered what they were expecting him to do. Tell the story about bringing him in from no-man’s land, possibly—but he was too tired for it. 

“I was just talking to him,” said Caldwell, another of the ones from their training group. “Just before, when we were picking up the rum ration. I asked him if I could have his, since he was teetotal.”

Someone else said something about the last time they’d spoken to Lamble, and then someone else after that.

Abruptly, Thomas realized why. They weren’t used to this. Even though they’d all seen deaths—scores of them—those had been strangers. Men who came into their lives as mangled pieces of meat. They didn’t _know_ , down at the bone, what it was like to have somebody just wink out of existence like that. 

They didn’t know that the worst thing you could do was talk about it. 

Abruptly, he shoved his feet back into his boots and went outside. 

He was sitting on one of the larger pieces of the rubble that used to be the farmhouse, smoking and carefully not thinking about anything at all, when someone approached. Rawlins. He sat down next to Thomas and lit his pipe. 

“What do you want?” Thomas asked. 

Rawlins clapped him on the shoulder. “You all right?”

“Yeah,” he said. It wasn’t like he and Lamble had been mates or anything. He didn’t have mates here—he’d decided not to—and if he had, it wouldn’t have been Lamble. “Look, I’m as sorry as anybody else that he’s dead. But there’s no point—” He gestured vaguely with his cigarette. “ _Wallowing_ in it. Makes it worse. He’s not the first, and he’s sure as hell not going to be the last.”

“That’s comforting,” said Rawlins, dryly. “I mean, that’s what they’re all thinking, right? _Am I next_? It’s not about Lamble; not really. You were probably his best mate in the billet.”

Thomas gave him a skeptical look.

“He liked that you didn’t bleat at him,” Rawlins explained. 

Oh, right—he’d been the one they bleated at, back in training camp. On account of his name, Thomas supposed. “That never really started up here, did it?”

“No,” said Rawlins, giving him a funny look. “He thought you stopped them doing it. The other ones from your draft.”

Why would he have done that? “It wasn’t funny,” Thomas said. “I mean, so what if he’s got a stupid name? Plank’s name is worse, ‘cause he’s thick as two short ones, but nobody gives him grief about it.”

Rawlins shrugged. “They like Plank.”

God knew why. “But I didn’t have anything to do with them stopping.”

“I don’t know,” said Rawlins. “Maybe you never told them to knock it off—but if you weren’t doing it, it couldn’t really be the thing to do, could it?”

Thomas had no idea why whether he bleated or not would make a difference in whether anyone else did, but he just shrugged and smoked. “Anyway, I just wish they’d shut it so I can go to sleep.”

By the time he went in—not too long after Rawlins—the others had started settling in, finally. As he fell asleep, he was wondering if anyone had thought yet of nicking Lamble’s blanket—it wouldn’t do a lot to make the barn floor more comfortable, but it might help a bit.

#

_1 October, 1915_

_Dear Cousin Robert,_

_I’m sorry that Mary was upset by getting a field postcard. The truth is, we’ve been having a fairly rotten time of it here, and for a while there was simply no time to write. We’re back in billets now—finally—but I have quite a number of letters to write to men’s families. It seems to use many of the same “muscles,” as it were, as it does to write a proper letter to her, or to Mother for that matter. After I’ve done a batch of them, I’ve simply nothing left._

_And I do feel that the families who are never going to see their sons or brothers or husbands again have a stronger claim on my attention, just now. I can’t think of the right way to put that to her, so that it doesn’t sound as though I’m saying she’s selfish for worrying about me—of course she isn’t! But I can send a field postcard to let everyone know that I’m all right—because I am all right—and the dead men can’t. Perhaps, having written such letters yourself, you can help her to understand. _

_I suppose that’s why I am writing now to you, instead of to Mary as I should—because you have seen war. It’s much easier to write to my friends who are at some point up or down the line, doing much the same things I’m doing, than it is to write to anyone at home. One doesn’t have to try to convey what it’s like, or to put things in a reassuring way._

_So I will write to you as I would a brother officer, and say that we are some distance from the big show—and glad of it—but for about a week we have been conducting a side-show of our own, in order to oblige the enemy to keep at his posts across the way. It was all the harder because things had been so quiet here before. It came as rather a shock to the neighbors when we started making noise, but once they had grasped the new order of things, they lost no time in making a racket of their own. Things were beginning to quiet down again when we were sent back to billets, so with any luck, we will have an easier time of it when we rotate back up._

_I ran into Thomas, by the way—Private Barrow, as he is now. He happened to be at the Aid Post, as part of a stretcher-party, at the same time I was checking on my wounded. It was on the worst night we’ve had, so I didn’t have time to really speak to him, nor he to me, but he looked as well as could be expected. Since you asked me to keep an eye out, I asked after him when I went to the Dressing Station the next day. An extraordinarily foul-mouthed Master Sergeant told me that the previous night had been Barrow’s first time under heavy fire, and that he’d done rather well._

_I should say that I was at the Dressing Station to visit my men—I am quite well._

_Sincerely,_

_Matthew Crawley_

“Have you heard from Thomas lately?” Robert asked as Bates was getting his dinner clothes ready. 

“A field postcard today, my lord,” said Bates. “We were glad to get it, as the last we’d heard from him was that things were very busy.”

“Matthew ran into him,” Robert said, retrieving the letter from his waistcoat pocket. “He says they’re some distance from Loos, but there was fighting in their sector.” At least, he was fairly sure that was what Matthew had been saying. The phrases he’d used had been almost as foreign as the notion of a subaltern openly saying that he was glad to be on the sidelines of a major battle, instead of in the thick of it. Robert wondered if it was true, that he’d say such a thing to a brother officer. Certainly no one would have done so in _his_ war—even if they’d been thinking it. 

Taking the letter from the envelope, he folded it so that the paragraph about Thomas showed. “Here.” 

Bates read it, nodding as he did so. “Well, that’s good to hear,” he said, handing it back. “In his letters, he sounds as though he’s doing well enough, but you never can tell.”

“I admit I didn’t think it wise, him joining up just when he did.” Robert unbuttoned his waistcoat and let Bates take it off of him. “I do wonder what Matthew’s standards are, for foul-mouthedness in a Master Sergeant.” They’d had a fine example of the breed in their regiment in South Africa.

“If it’s the one Thomas calls the Wardmaster, my lord, I get the impression he could give old Sergeant Gibbs a run for his money.”

“For Thomas’s sake, let’s hope he takes after Gibbs in other ways, too,” Robert noted. Gibbs had been a solid enough chap, and a sergeant like that could make your war. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Historical notes: 
> 
> On battles, and trench warfare in general: The "big battle" Thomas references is the Battle of Loos. Like most major battles of the Great War, it was an attempt by one side (the British and Allies, in this case) to break through the enemy's lines of trenches and shift from static trench warfare to a war of movement. It was not successful; hence the war continuing for more than three years. 
> 
> Harold Chapin, whose letters I cited in my previous note, was one of the over 20,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers who was killed in the battle and whose remains were never found. One good source for the battle is Robert Graves's famous memoir _Goodbye To All That_. Graves was a British officer, as well as a poet and novelist. 
> 
> As Thomas notes in the text, Loos itself is well to the north of where he's posted, but a major battle often produced increased violence in other areas of the Front. Outside of major battles (which, as noted above, were intended to produce a breakthrough in the lines), trench warfare consisted of "holding the line"--not attempting to move forward, but keeping the enemy from doing so, either. The level of violence involved in holding the line could range from perfunctory (a brief exchange of rifle fire at dawn and dusk, known to some British soldiers as the "Ten Minutes Hate," with mere physical presence serving as a deterrent the rest of the time) to severe (heavy artillery fire, sniping of any enemy soldiers whose heads show above the parapet, and trench raiding, where small parties crossed no-man's land, usually at night, to attack with grenades and hand-to-hand weapons). What Thomas experiences in this chapter is toward the maximally-violent end of the range. 
> 
> One of the significant stressors of trench warfare was that the level of violence in the section if line you were holding could go from minimal to maximal without warning. The buildup to a major battle was unmistakable--whether it was your side doing it or the other guys--but a sector could heat up for no reason other than the arrival of a new officer who was keener than the old one. 
> 
> On Diggs: People absolutely were executed for displaying cowardice in the face of the enemy--like Mrs. Patmore's nephew in canon--but the relatively small number of men (about 300) executed for this crime is dwarfed by the number who suffered lesser punishments for the offense. While the trenches of the Great War are remembered as being horrifically unpleasant, it's important to remember that they were defensive fortifications--the whole point of a trench is that you're safer inside of it than not. Exiting a trench in a forward direction--going into no-man's land--dramatically increased one's chances of death or injury. It's little wonder that some men couldn't bring themselves to do it. 
> 
> On field postcards: I may have linked to this example in "Halo Effect"--I don't remember--but even if I did, it's worth looking at again: https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205131476 . Field service postcards were basically a form letter for telling your loved ones you were still alive: they had a number of pre-printed phrases, and you crossed out the ones that didn't apply. (I am well, I am in hospital, etc.) The main reason they were necessary (besides limited time to write, and limited literacy on the part of some soldiers and their loved ones at home) was that written letters had to be censored: read by an officer to cross out any militarily-sensitive information that may have been included, such as place names. (In Thomas's letters, redacted words and phrases are indicated by "XXXXX.") Field postcards did not require censoring--it was forbidden to write anything on them other than the address, signature, and date--so they could be sent out more quickly at busy times.


	8. Chapter Six: October-November, 1915

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Following his appointment to lance-corporal, Thomas takes on new responsibilities.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Notes: Military violence, medical gore, background character death. 
> 
> Vocabulary note: A Mills bomb is a British hand grenade. A stick bomb is a German one. 
> 
> On the organization of the forward area, with particular attention to the RAMC:  
> This chapter introduces some of the other medical facilities in the vicinity of where Thomas is posted. The nature and function of these can be figured out from context, but if you want to know a little more about what everything is and how it fits together, read on. 
> 
> My main source on this topic was “The Royal Army Medical Corps and Its Work,” 1917, British Medical Association. Full text available here: http://www.vlib.us/medical/ramc/ramc.htm . This essay describes how RAMC medical facilities were organized, from the Western Front to the English Channel, including photos and diagrams of ideal facilities at each level of care—but the key thing to remember when reading it is that it describes how things were _supposed_ to be, not how they actually _were_. 
> 
> The trenches of the Great War were extensive networks--not simply two ditches facing one another across no-man’s land. The forward or firing trenches, which face no-man’s-land, are the ones you usually see in War movies (and that we see Thomas in, in canon). Behind that is at least one line (usually more than one) of support trenches, which provide storage and staging areas for equipment, supplies, and men that might need to be moved up to the forward line on short notice, as well as providing a base for combat-support services such as medical, communications, etc. Forward and support trenches were connected by communication trenches, running roughly perpendicular to the line. 
> 
> The Regimental Aid Post, which is sort of like the village doctor for a regiment, is located in the trenches with the regiment, and as such is the most-forward medical facility. Its role is first aid, treatment of cases too minor to require evacuation rearward, and overseeing the sanitary arrangements. Patients generally don’t stay in the Aid Post—either they’re treated and returned to duty, or they’re evacuated rearward. 
> 
> An Advanced Dressing Station would usually be either in the support trenches or immediately adjacent to them. Like the Aid Post, it focuses on immediate treatment and evacuation, but is equipped for first aid of a more complicated kind. Larger ones may even have facilities for emergency surgery. A Regimental Aid Post serves one regiment (hence the name), while an Advanced Dressing Station might be shared by two or three regiments. 
> 
> Often, somewhere between the forward line and the Main Dressing Station would be a spot designated as a collecting post, where wounded can be temporarily gathered for transport rearward. In many cases, it’s just that--a post in the ground that marks the “put wounded here” spot. The 47th’s one has an actual building, which it shares with a signals hut (where communication equipment and personnel are located), but it has no doctors or medical equipment. Wardmaster Tully usually puts an NCO there to direct traffic. 
> 
> Thomas’s 47th Ambulance Unit is a Main Dressing Station. Those are usually located behind the network of trenches, often clustered with other support services (transport, combat engineers, etc.) in a village, or the remains of one. Main Dressing Stations generally have facilities for surgery and short-term hospital care. 
> 
> Theoretically, each Advanced Dressing Station feeds into a Main Dressing Station, which then feeds into a Casualty Clearing Station, and a given patient would filter through each of these steps in order, being triaged at each stage, but because of the confusing and chaotic layout of the combat zone, patients could end up going straight from the fighting line to a Main Dressing, or straight from an Advanced Dressing to a Casualty Clearing Station.
> 
> All of the above are considered mobile units—if the regiments they support advance (or retreat), they advance (or retreat) too; that’s why the Main Dressing Stations were also called Field Ambulance units. But the Western Front was so static that the mobile nature of these units was purely theoretical. 
> 
> The last of the medical facilities in what was considered the combat zone were Casualty Clearing Stations. These were usually located near a major railway, and their original purpose was to receive patients from the more forward facilities, and move them out of the combat zone. But as the static nature of the Western Front became apparent, they—and the Main Dressing Stations—took on more responsibility for short-term and medium-term care. 
> 
> (continued in endnote)

To his surprise, Thomas settled in well enough as Night Corporal. The wards he was in charge of weren’t heavy work, at least at night—the convalescents could get a bit demanding during the day, as they knew they would be back in the trenches soon and wanted to make the most of their holiday. But at night they mostly slept, and could get back and forth to the toilet on their own, so there wasn’t even much bedpan work to do. Thomas’s main responsibilities were filling out the paperwork—which was usually left in a dreadful state by the Day Corporals—and periodically walking through his wards to check that all was well and that the orderlies under him weren’t sleeping.

The first night, he did it eight times, for fear that some problem would escape his notice.

The orderlies he was in charge of didn’t give any trouble either—unless you counted Watts and Palmer, who were both Regular Army and considerably older than he, calling him “Lad” instead of “Corporal.” (Thomas decided _not_ to count that as trouble.) When he expressed his surprise to Jessop, he replied, “Not everyone wants the extra responsibility, tha’ knows—especially an there’s no brass in it. No, out of us Regulars, those who had the makings of an NCO were promoted last winter, and sent to sort out the new units. Them as are left are happy where they are.” He paused. “Now, if they’d given you Diggs’s _billet_ , that would be a different story.” 

So that took care of those two. Thomas kept a wary eye on Taylor, who was also a wartime recruit—though not quite new enough not to have to live in the barn—but he showed no particular resentment, either. Eventually, one of Thomas’s billet-mates reported that Taylor had been overheard saying that Thomas was “A damn sight better than fucking Diggs.” 

As far as Thomas knew, Diggs had not been especially unpopular before—though his work-shy ways were well known, he was also considered a wit in the orderlies’ room—but now he was universally loathed. When word of his punishment got out, everyone went round talking about how he’d gotten off easily, and when they put him on the post at morning and afternoon break-times, people got up parties to go and gawp at him. 

That part of it made Thomas’s skin crawl, from secondhand embarrassment, and he was more resolved than ever not to make enemies, or get himself in trouble. (He was also extremely grateful that Carson had never been allowed to put anyone on F.P. One. His brand of public humiliation was bad enough, but at least people couldn’t turn up on purpose to watch.)

A few days in, he picked up his post in the orderly room. One from Anna—he really did owe her a letter—and one… “Fuck.”

Rawlins, who was hanging about for some reason, asked, “What?”

Thomas showed him the envelope. It was one he’d sent to Joey, a little while ago, and written above the address was “Undeliverable—killed in action.”

“Fuck,” Rawlins echoed. “Who was it?”

“Just somebody I used to know,” Thomas said, and tossed the letter into the woodstove. 

_4 October, 1915_

_Dear Thomas,_

_Thank you for sending the field postcard—we were starting to worry. His lordship told Mr. Bates that Mr. Matthew wrote that he had seen you recently, and that it was a bad night, but you seemed to be bearing up well. He also said that your sergeant had spoken highly of you._

_Mr. Bates also talked to us about how it can be difficult for men to write home when they’re away at war—how you need to keep your mind on what you’re doing, and things like that. Lady Mary has been upset that Mr. Matthew has not been writing as often as he did at the beginning. The other day, she got a field postcard from him and ran away from the breakfast table. We all thought that it must have said he was wounded, but it was only a “quite well” one. I gather that Mr. Bates and his lordship had a talk about Helping the Women Understand._

_So I wanted you to know that I do understand, and that if you can’t write, a field postcard to let us know you’re all right is always welcome. But if you are having a hard time, I hope there is someone you can talk to, whether it’s in a letter (to me, or anyone else) or someone there. _

_We’re all well here. Because of the war, no one is hunting or shooting, so there have been no house parties. The ladies are talking about organizing a concert, to benefit the hospital as well as to keep everyone’s spirits up. I suppose it seems too frivolous to have a party just for the sake of it, but as long as it’s related to the war in some way, it’s all right._

_I hope that you’re well. We’ll be sending some biscuits and things next week, so if there is anything else you need, just say the word._

_Love,_

_Anna Smith_

That night, after he’d done his paperwork, Thomas tried to write a reply. He got as far as,

_7 October, 1915_

_Dear Anna,_

_That was kind of Mr. Matthew to say. I’m all right, just very busy. I’ve been made a Lance-Corporal again, and am in charge of four wards at night. (They are the easiest ones—mostly patients who are nearly well.)_

_On the bad night Mr. Matthew spoke of_

After that, he couldn’t think what to say. He stared at the paper for a long while, wondering if he ought to just chuck it and start over—or chuck it and send a field postcard. 

It was something of a relief when a man halfway down the ward—he’d posted himself in Men’s Convalescent, that night—a man started yelling, “Orderly? Orderly!” 

He got up and hurried over, before the man could wake everyone else. 

“Orderly?” the man said, once he got there, turning his head from side to side. 

Apart from weaving like a charmed cobra, he looked absolutely fine. “Yes, what?”

“I can’t see a bloody thing. I’ve gone blind!”

That was bloody strange. Thomas checked the man’s tally-card, to make sure he remembered the case. He’d been blown up—that is, tossed into the air by a high-explosive shell—but had come down more-or-less unharmed, except for being too sore to stand upright the next day. He’d been admitted for a couple of days’ rest, and was due to go back to the Front tomorrow. 

Experimentally, Thomas waved his hand in front of the man’s face. He didn’t react, except to turn his head from side to side some more. “Hold your head still, please.” He got out his lighter and sparked it. “You don’t see that?” he asked, holding the flame in front of the man’s face.

“I don’t see a bloody thing,” he repeated. 

“Let me get the doctor,” Thomas decided. This was definitely above his pay grade, or Jessop’s for that matter. “Try to stay calm.”

In the corridor, Thomas hesitated, wondering if he ought to check with Jessop before he woke up Captain Allenby. So far, this was the closest thing to an emergency he’d had, unless you counted the dysentery case in Officers’ Sick the night before. 

That hadn’t called for a doctor, though, just all of the orderlies on his block.

But both Jessop and the Wardmaster had said he was to wake Allenby if he thought it necessary, and he couldn’t ask Jessop to hold his hand for every little thing. He went to the cupboard where the night duty MO slept, and knocked on the door. 

“Coming!” Captain Allenby opened the door a moment later, fully dressed but with his jacket unbuttoned and his shirt open at the collar, and blinking owlishly. “Ah. Barrow. What is it?”

“Sir,” he said, “A patient in Men’s Convalescent just woke up blind.”

“Did he,” said Captain Allenby. “Who?”

“Private Travers, sir.”

“I see. Lead on.”

They went back to the ward. Naturally, by the time they arrived, several more men had woken up, and two had decided that they wanted, respectively, a drink of water and an extra blanket. 

Once the two complainers were taken care of, Thomas stuck his head into the consulting-room where Captain Allenby had taken Travers. He was shining a small torch into the man’s eyes, and making vaguely medical noises, like, “I see,” and “Interesting.” 

He paused in this activity for a moment to look over at Thomas and nod; Thomas, unsure whether that meant he was to go or stay, posted himself by the door and waited to see if he’d be told otherwise.

After another moment, Allenby shut off the torch and pocketed it, saying briskly, “I wouldn’t worry. This happens sometimes.”

“Can you fix it, sir?” asked Travers, his tone worried.

“Certainly. We’ll start with some eye drops. If that doesn’t work, we _may_ have to operate.”

“On my eyes, sir?”

“Your brain, as a matter of fact. But the drops almost always work. Barrow, get him lying on the table, please.”

Thomas hurried over and helped Travers onto the examination table. While he was doing that, Allenby got out a dropper-bottle and several cloths. “Now, after I put the drops in, I’ll need you to close your eyes tightly and then lie still for about an hour. After that, we’ll know if it’s worked.” He administered the drops, and Travers screwed his eyes shut. Allenby placed the cloths over his eyes, for good measure, then turned for the door, beckoning for Thomas to follow him. 

Once they were out in the corridor, Thomas said, “Er, should I get him a cup of tea or a cigarette or anything, sir?” He rather thought not, but the question might prompt the officer to indulge his curiosity.

“No,” said Allenby. “We want him to lie there thinking about how very dull it is to be blind.”

“He’s not really blind, sir, is he?” Thomas was certainly no medical expert, but it seemed unlikely that there could be a type of blindness that might be cured with either eye drops or brain surgery—especially with no steps in between. 

Allenby shook his head, and cautioned, “It’s possible he’s not deliberately shamming. In some cases—rare cases—a man’s brain can actually trick itself into believing that he’s blind, or mute, or paralyzed, or what have you. Paralysis would be a bit more plausible in this case, since there was actually some small amount of bruising around the spine, but that’s neither here nor there.” He opened the door to his cupboard and gestured Thomas inside. “Either way, a bit of sleight-of-hand can be effective. If he’s shamming, he can back down without embarrassment, and if it’s a case of genuine hysterical symptoms, the power of suggestion is often enough to effect a cure.”

“I see,” Thomas said. “Will he get in trouble?”

“Not if he’s cured in an hour,” answered Allenby. “If he isn’t, it’ll be important to figure out whether he’s really hysterical. I should be rather surprised if he were, but I won’t accuse a man of malingering on the basis of a five-minute examination.” He looked around the tiny room, which contained a bunk, a tiny desk, and nothing else. “Do you see my tie? It has to be in here somewhere. I might as well take a walk round the wards, while I’m up.”

Thomas found it in the first place he looked, on the inside doorknob. “Here you are, sir.”

“Ah.” 

The moment Allenby draped it around his neck and started tying it, Thomas could tell he was going to make a dog’s dinner of it. The narrow end was going to be longer than the wide end, and the knot would be fat and lopsided. He reached out automatically to fix it, remembering himself just in time to say, “Sir, would you like me to--?”

“Oh—yes, all right. Was never very good at these things.”

He did, at least, know how to be dressed, and stood squarely while Thomas fixed his tie for him, taking the opportunity while he did so to straighten his collar-badges. 

“All present and correct, then?” asked Allenby.

“Yes, sir.”

“Whose batman were you?” Allenby asked, as they started toward the wards. “Before you got bumped up, I mean.” 

Unit custom was against NCO’s acting as soldier-servants, as they were needed too much on wards. “No one’s, sir. I was a valet before the war.”

“Oh,” he said. “That might have been quite a change.”

“In some ways, sir, yes.”

Thomas was unsure if Allenby meant for him to accompany him, but he started with Thomas’s wards, and hadn’t actually dismissed him, so he figured he might as well make his walk-round at the same time. Allenby spoke to him a bit from time to time, and it was sort of relaxing. There were only so many times you could say “Too right” in a single conversation before it started sounding like you were taking the piss, but you could go on with “Yes, sir” forever. 

When Captain Allenby moved on to C Block, Thomas returned to his worktable in the middle of the room. After noting in the log-book that he’d woken the MO to check on a patient, he turned back to his letter. Picking up from the line, “On the bad night Mr. Matthew spoke of,” he wrote,

_Someone else made a fairly serious mistake, and I suppose I looked good by comparison._

_Must go now, one of the patients is calling for me._

_Thomas_

It wasn’t much of a letter, but writing it somehow took up most of the time until Captain Allenby returned, and it was time to check on Travers. He was lying right where they’d left him, and when Allenby asked him how he was faring, he said, “All right, sir. I hope this works.”

“So do I,” said Allenby, and began ceremoniously taking the cloths off Travers’s eyes. 

When the last one was removed, Travers announced, in a tone of surprise and relief, “I can see, sir! Oh, it’s a miracle.”

“Just modern medicine,” said Allenby, modestly. 

After that night, Thomas found that Captain Allenby took a bit of an interest in him. He’d usually stop for a chat when we made one of his walks round the wards, and would sometimes suggest that they walk together, or point out an interesting case to him. 

One evening, Thomas even found himself—God knew why—telling Allenby about a strange dream he’d had. He’d mentioned that he hadn’t slept well. “Strange dreams,” he added. “I seem to get those sleeping during the day.”

Allenby glanced—involuntarily, Thomas thought—in the direction of the sound of the guns—and asked, “That business last month?”

“No, sir. It weren’t even about the war, just queer.” Allenby looked at him expectantly, so he went on, “I was in some sort of…I’m not sure. Hospital or prison or something. Maybe it were a lunatic asylum. Part of the cure—or punishment, or whatever it was—was that they gave us something to make us blind. I suppose it was that lecture we had, and maybe it reminded me somehow of that bloke from last week.” The lecture had been about the treatment of gas casualties, given by one of the medical officers who had seen some of the first ones, up at the big show. Poison gas could cause blindness.

Allenby nodded, and said, “Sounds frightful.”

“No, sir. Well, not really. There was a bloke there who had some way of fixing it, so that was all right.” Now he said it, he wondered if the “bloke” had, in fact, been Captain Allenby, in which case he should have said “a gentleman.” But if he didn’t know, Allenby certainly couldn’t either, so he went on, “Only if we let on that we could see, they’d just do it again, so any time the guards, or doctors, or whatever they were turned up, we had to go about pretending we were still blind.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t sound like much, I suppose, but when I woke up from it, I couldn’t get back to sleep.”

Allenby gave him a sideways look, and asked delicately, “Are you _entirely_ sure that it wasn’t about the war?”

Thomas supposed that jokes about the blind leading the blind—the General Staff, who had no idea what it was like on the ground here, and the men on the Front, who had no idea what it was all for—were as much in circulation among the officers as they were among the men, and said only, “I’m sure it’s not my place to comment on that, sir.” 

Captain Allenby chuffed, clapped him on the shoulder, and said something about a patient they ought to check on.

That sort of familiarity didn’t seem to be usual here—the Medical Officers left the supervision and education of the men to the NCOs, and certainly didn’t socialize with them—but it all made sense when, one night, when their walk took them to Allenby’s cupboard, Allenby put one hand on the doorknob and the other on Thomas’s arm, and looked at him meaningfully.

Thomas considered for a moment. It had been a long time, certainly. And it could be a useful thing, having an officer in his corner. Allenby wasn’t bad looking, either, and he was nice enough. 

If Thomas had felt like having it off with anybody, Allenby would be a good choice. But he didn’t, really. 

He shook his head, fractionally. Allenby let go of his arm, said, “Good night,” and disappeared into his cupboard.

What _didn’t_ quite make sense was when, the next night, Allenby turned up as usual, and talked to him as though nothing had happened. Thomas wondered if he’d make another pass—a more emphatic one, perhaps—but he didn’t. 

It wasn’t too much of a surprise that Allenby didn’t press him—he didn’t seem the sort, really, which was a good thing, since Thomas had no idea how you were meant to handle a bloke getting a bit insistent, when both of you knew it was technically a capital offense for you to clock him one. But why he went on hanging about, if he didn’t want anything out of it, Thomas didn’t know.

The other pleasant thing about night duty was that no one else in the billet happened to be on it that rotation, and so Thomas had the barn to himself nearly every day. He still saw his billet-mates in the mess—though they were starting their day when he was finishing his, and vice-versa—and found them all much more bearable in smaller doses. After spending his duty-shifts mostly in silence, apart from Captain Allenby’s visits, he didn’t mind the constant chattering so much, and even found himself volunteering an anecdote from time to time, on the rare occasions when something interesting happened on the night shift in D Block. 

One evening, toward the end of the rotation, one of the sergeants stepped in front of him and said, “Barrow!” 

Thomas braced up, trying frantically to think what he’d done. It was Sergeant Hackman, who was in charge of off wards work, so it wasn’t likely to be anything to do with his job. And there was nothing wrong with his uniform; there never was. “Yes, Sergeant?”

“Come on and eat with us, lad.”

Oh. By unit custom, lance-corporals messed with the ranks unless invited to the NCOs’ mess by a sergeant. He couldn’t think of a reason why Sergeant Hackman would grant him the honor—except if Jessop had asked him to, which seemed fairly likely. No one had said whether his appointment would end with the rotation, but it seemed likely that it would. 

It wasn’t a long walk; the NCOs’ mess was in the same building as the men’s, and not noticeably grander—unless you counted the addition of a rather stained tablecloth over the plain-board table as grandeur. 

He was relieved when Hackman deposited him at the far end from the Wardmaster, with the more junior corporals. While all of the sergeants were Regular Army, and older, about half of the corporals were 1914 volunteers. They normally held themselves a bit aloof from those who hadn’t gotten round to joining up until the _second_ year of the war, but they seemed willing enough to take him on sufferance, at least this once, greeting him with friendly nods, making sure he had salt, bread and butter, and so on. 

Most of the food was rations, same as they got in the regular mess—stew and bread again tonight; nobody here seemed to know how to make a pie—but they also had local cheese and pickles, passed around with the main course. Thomas hesitated over whether to help himself to these—he thought it likely that the NCOs clubbed together to buy them, the way the officers did all the delicacies they had in _their_ mess—but Simmons, the bloke next to him, pressed them on him, so he took a small amount. No one started shouting, so Thomas supposed it was all right.

For the first part of the meal, the conversation was divided, the senior men talking loudly at their end of the table, and the juniors rather more quietly at theirs. Most of what they said seemed to be an extension of earlier conversations of which Thomas was ignorant, but they made an effort to include him by occasionally asking him how he was finding Block D, or if it was true he lived in a ratty old barn with a lot of other new chaps.

Thomas also discovered that junior corporals were, with one or two possible exceptions, middle class. One of them actually asked him where he’d been to _school_ , of all things.

“Sheffield,” he said.

“There’s a school there?” the fellow, Hayward, asked.

“The council school, yeah,” Thomas said, deliberately roughening his accent. 

“Then why’re you—” 

The bloke next to Hayward elbowed him in the ribs, and he shut up. 

Another one, Gladwell, changed the subject by asking, “Why is it the other new chaps call you the Magnificent Bastard?”

Thomas knew he’d been referred to that way on occasion, but he hadn’t quite realized it had reached the status of a sobriquet. He was tempted to say that it was because he was one, but settled on, “I’m not entirely sure.”

From the far end of the table, the Wardmaster boomed, “It’s the one about the fucking _hand_ , lad.”

Thomas had had no idea the Wardmaster was even listening, and blinked stupidly for a moment, until Simmons whispered, “He hears every fucking word we say—don’t ask me how.” More loudly, he added, “The hand was _you_?”

“If you mean the one with that bloke’s wedding ring on it, yes,” Thomas admitted. Blimey; that had been months ago.

The bloke next to Hayward turned to him and said, “That’s why.”

“Oh,” said Hayward, nodding as though that did, in fact, explain everything—although Thomas had no idea how. 

“Why the fuck _did_ you do that?” the Wardmaster asked, his tone one of benign curiosity.

If Jessop had asked him that during one of their nights on the wards—or perhaps even if the Wardmaster had asked him in private—he might have told the truth, and said that he hadn’t known yet that wounded men routinely accused the RAMC of theft, and had been genuinely afraid that someone would get in trouble for stealing the thing. If one of the other young corporals had asked, he might have told them that accusations of theft were a serious matter where he came from—making a point of the fact that he’d been a servant, and wasn’t ashamed of it. But as it was, he settled on, “I wanted him to stop banging on about it, Sergeant.”

This exchange seemed to break the conversational barrier between the two ends of the table, and over pudding—baked apples with custard, another thing they didn’t get in the regular mess—the older corporals spoke freely to the younger ones. 

At one point, Jessop asked him what he thought of “Young Allenby.”

Other conversations slowed, and Thomas was acutely aware that most of the room was waiting to hear what he’d say. He wondered how many of the others Allenby had made passes at, and if he’d ever got it wrong. “He seems a very competent officer,” Thomas said. “And he’s got a nice manner about him. He’s got a way with the men—patients, I mean—of not being too formal with them, but not so friendly it’s condescending.” He paused. “He could stand to dress better, but I suppose he’s got other things on his mind.”

He wondered if that last bit might be going a little far—Carson wouldn’t have appreciated it, unless it was about a gentleman he disliked—but all it got him here was a chuckle. 

After dinner, Rawlins and several others from the billet were waiting near his wards, to pounce on him and ask how it had been in the NCO’s mess. “Fine,” he said. “There was a good pudding.”

Rawlins gave him a playful shove. “Pudding! What’s the _Wardmaster_ like, when he lets his hair down?”

Thomas was fairly sure that he _hadn’t_ —at least, not tonight. Possibly a bit in that conversation he wasn’t supposed to talk about. He shrugged. “He says ‘fuck’ a lot.”

“So…like normal, then?” Plank asked.

“Yes, Plank,” Thomas said, wearily. “That’s what I was getting at.”

A day or two later, the duty roster for the next rotation went up. Most of the others rushed to look at it, but Thomas lingered over his breakfast. He wondered if he’d get linen-wallah again. That wouldn’t be bad—switching from nights to days could be rough, as you usually had to do two duty-shifts in a row, but it wouldn’t be so bad if it was another light job. 

He was mopping the last bit of egg off his plate when Rawlins came back into the mess. “You’d better come and look, Barrow.”

“Why?” he asked, downing the last of his tea.

“Just look,” said Rawlins.

So Thomas went and looked. On the roster, next to his name, it said “Seconded—RAP.”

RAP was the Regimental Aid Post—in the trenches. His first thought was that they’d asked him into the NCOs’ mess for his bloody _last supper_. Then common sense reasserted itself, and he checked the rest of the roster, to see if anyone else was going. Jessop was. Well, that had to be all right, then—they wouldn’t send _him_ on a suicide assignment. 

“Huh,” he said to Rawlins, who appeared to be waiting on tenterhooks for his reaction.

Rawlins let out his breath. “It’ll be a bit exciting, I suppose.”

“I hope not,” said Thomas. “Have you ever gone?”

Rawlins shook his head. “You’re the first out of our billet to pull that duty, I’m pretty sure.”

“It won’t be bad,” Thomas said, trying to sound surer of it than he felt. “It’s too late in the year for a push—and anyway, we’ve just had one.”

Jessop, when Thomas caught up to him in the NCOs’ room, confirmed what he’d thought. “It’s nowt to worry about, lad. The brass hats are sending Young Allenby up to get a bit of experience with regimental work while it’s quiet, and Tully and I thought that weren’t a bad idea for you, either.”

Tully was the Wardmaster’s name, although nobody except the Regular Army NCOs called him that. 

“And I’m going along to keep an eye on the both of you,” added Jessop. 

“I saw that,” Thomas said. “I’m sure we’ll be fine. Is it just the three of us?”

Jessop shook his head. “The complement’s five enlisted and an MO. The others are coming from the Advanced Dressing Station. I don’t know them, but with a new MO going up, they’ll send steady men who are used to the work. You want a young officer to do well, his first time out, so as not to wreck his confidence, like.”

“That makes sense,” said Thomas. “It does sound like it’ll be a good opportunity for me, then, too.” It reminded him, queerly enough, of the matter of Lady Mary and the Turkish gentleman, and how the barriers erected to shield her from scandal had also protected him a bit, particularly from having to lie under oath at an inquest. 

In this case, though, he got the impression that Jessop and the Wardmaster had actually _decided_ to tuck him into a spot where he’d get the benefit of Captain Allenby’s umbrella, instead of it being a fortunate happenstance. 

“Good,” said Jessop, nodding. “Now, there’s one more thing—do you mind being Young Allenby’s batman?”

“That’s fine,” said Thomas. “I’m a trained valet.”

“Aye, he mentioned that,” Jessop said. “Good. Then you can stay on as lance-corporal. I expect you know better than to teach the men from the ADS how to suck eggs?”

Thomas wasn’t sure what difference it made whether he was a lance-corporal or not, but he nodded. “I do. When do we leave?”

“The day after tomorrow,” said Jessop. “So check your kit, while there’s still time to draw anything you need from Stores.”

So Thomas went back to the billet and checked his kit. Everything was in order except his iron rations, which the mice had been at. He set them aside to take with him to Stores—several others in the billet having attempted this procedure before him, he knew that they would not take his word for it that the rations had been destroyed, and if he couldn’t supply evidence, they’d accuse him of having eaten them himself. 

Why anyone would want to, Thomas couldn’t begin to imagine. In the trenches, he supposed, the issue of illicit consumption of hard biscuit and bully-beef might actually arise, but here, it generally wasn’t too difficult to obtain actual food—particularly good food, even.

With that thought in mind, he set the billet alarm clock for a bit earlier than usual, and after he’d called in at Stores, treated himself to supper at Granny’s. He’d been back to the estaminet several times, sometimes with Rawlins, and other times on his own. He’d never been disappointed, and this time was no exception. The _plat du jour_ was rabbit stewed in wine, with mushrooms, carrots, and tiny onions, and he reported for duty full and content. 

Not long after the patients were settled in for the night, Captain Allenby turned up to talk about their new assignment. “Should be interesting, doing a spell of ‘trenches,’” he said. That was the way the line officers referred to it—not “in the trenches,” just “trenches.” Thomas could hear Captain Allenby’s self-consciousness as he used the expression. “Major Thwaite assures me they’re expecting a quiet spell.”

“Yes, sir. Corporal Jessop’s assured me the same.”

“Good,” said Allenby. He hesitated. “Did Jessop ask you about being my batman, while we’re there?”

“Yes, sir. I’m happy to do it.”

“Thank you. I asked him to speak to you about it, because I wanted you to feel free to turn it down.” He gave Thomas a significant look before adding, “If it seemed a bit much for your first spell in trenches.”

What he was really trying to say, of course, was that he wasn’t planning to use the opportunity of Thomas dressing him, to make another pass at him. “I expect it’ll be all right, sir,” Thomas said, because he hadn’t thought that Allenby would. “Would you like me to go over your kit when we go off duty?”

“Would you?” asked Allenby. “The others have been giving me all sorts of advice about what to pack, and I’ve gotten in a bit of a muddle about it.”

“Yes, sir.” Thomas didn’t actually have a clear idea of what an officer would need in the trenches either—he’d been thinking more of checking the condition of the Captain’s things, as he had his own—but he could ask Corporal Jessop. 

Corporal Jessop did, indeed, have some good advice on the subject, and also told Thomas that he’d talk Stores into issuing extra shirts, socks, and so on for both of them. That was a relief, because normally you were only issued two of each article—one to wear and one to wash. It was difficult enough here at the station to avoid ending up with both sets simultaneously too filthy to wear, and he was sure it would be worse at the Aid Post.

Thomas had known that an officer’s billet would have to be a great deal nicer than his own, but was still a little surprised by how pleasant Captain Allenby’s was. He was put up, along with several other officers from other units, in the local vicarage—or whatever Catholics called it—which was a largish stone house, entirely intact. The priest was evidently still in residence, and his housekeeper provided both the Captain and Thomas with buns and large cups of milky coffee, which Allenby took in the priest’s sitting room, and Thomas in the kitchen.

The delay was a bit chafing—Thomas was determined to get a good day’s sleep today, as tomorrow they’d be leaving only a few hours after their shift ended—but it was still a bit of a treat to sit in a civilian kitchen, while ordinary domestic routines swirled around him. Those routines were conducted entirely in French, of course, but still, he was able to recognize instantly what was happening when, for example, the scullery maid fed the stove and the housekeeper began berating her for wasting coal. 

Allenby had a tidy and civilized guest bedroom at the top of the house, which he was obliged to share with only one other officer, and a proper bed all to himself with sheets and everything. Thomas briefly contemplated writing to Branson about those Socialist pamphlets, and then got to work on his kit. 

Unsurprisingly, Allenby had a good supply of shirts, socks, and underclothes, of which Thomas urged him to pack as many as he was willing to carry. He also had quite a collection of books, framed photographs, and other impedimenta, which Thomas recommended leaving behind. Trickier were a variety of articles of the sort that were advertised as “perfect gifts for the man in the trench”—galoshes, writing sets, hot water bottles, patent safety lamps that went out if they were tipped over, thermal flasks, and so on. Still, they were able to come to an agreement as to which of these were really essential, and Thomas managed to avoid agreeing to carry more than two or three of them himself. 

The rest of the time before they were due to go up seemed to speed by. First there was going back to the barn and re-packing his kit, so as to add in the few things of Captain Allenby’s that he said he’d take, before he could go to sleep. Then there was carrying it all in to the station—they’d been granted a couple of hours between going off-shift and leaving for the Front, which Thomas had decided would be better spent napping in the linen room than going back to the barn for his kit. 

The others from the billet were, it turned out, a bit annoyed not to have gotten a chance to make a fuss over him at dinner the previous night—Thomas having gone to Granny’s instead—and made up for lost time. When he went on duty in Block D, Rawlins and a couple of others tagged along and then hung about for what seemed like half the night. 

Thomas told them that if they didn’t have anything better to do, they could help out with the bedpan rounds—it was his turn in Men’s Sick that night, and there were a number of dysentery cases—and instead of taking the hint and making themselves scarce, they actually _did_. 

In the morning, most of the billet turned up early for breakfast, and you would have thought it was Thomas’s birthday from the pile of cigarettes, sweets, and other bits and pieces that appeared beside his plate. Two who hadn’t thought to bring anything offered him their bacon. (He took half from each of them.)

“You lot do know I’m not planning to die up there, don’t you?” he asked. 

“Of course you’re not,” said Manning. 

“Yeah, you’ve got to come back and tell us all about it,” added Plank. 

“Have you _met_ him, mate?” asked Perkins. “The only way we’ll find out what happens is if they say when they come and pin the DCM on him.”

“Nothing’s going to happen,” Thomas said. “Except I’ll be sleeping somewhere even worse than the bloody barn. They’re sending Captain Allenby because he’s never done regimental work before, and they’re expecting it to be a quiet time.”

The others looked around at each other, and Thomas grasped that this was one of those times when he inadvertently said something the rest of them found impressive for some reason. Finally, Rawlins ventured, “How do you know that, then?”

“Corporal Jessop said.” 

They did not look any less impressed. 

“They’ve had him keeping an eye on me, on the night shift,” he explained. “It’s not like he confides in me.” The Wardmaster had, that once, but he wasn’t allowed to mention that, and in hindsight he had probably been rather the worse for drink. 

Finally, the others had to go on duty, and Thomas was able to retreat to the linen room for his nap. He’d asked Rawlins to get up him in plenty of time, which Rawlins did, bringing him a cup of tea to boot. 

“I’m sure you will be all right,” he said, leaning against the sorting table as Thomas drank his tea.

Thomas nodded. “Sure. The post’s in the support line.” The support line was well in range of shelling, but outside of a really heavy bombardment, the chances of any one spot being hit were slim. And it was in the forward line where you had to worry about snipers and trench mortars and things like that. 

Thomas was not sure how often the corpsmen at the Aid Post had to go up to the forward line—it probably varied—but he was fairly confident he’d be spending the majority of his time in the support line.

“If you need anything, send a note back by the collecting post,” Rawlins suggested. “I don’t mind popping out to the shops for you, and we can settle up when you get back.”

“Ta,” said Thomas. He wasn’t sure what he might need—he certainly had enough cigarettes, between standard issue, the supply he’d bought, and the ones that had been pressed on him at breakfast—but he supposed something might come up. He finished his tea, handed the cup back to Rawlins, and started putting on his gear. It took him a moment to remember how the webbing went—they didn’t wear it on duty in the dressing station, only for stretcher-parties and things like that—and then Rawlins gave him a hand strapping on his greatcoat, blanket, and groundsheet. “Did you see I left Lamb’s blanket with your kit?” They’d been asked to sort out Lamble’s personal effects to be sent back to his family, but nobody had said anything about his standard-issue kit, so they’d kept it around for spares. “I want it back after this.” Nobody had argued about him appropriating the blanket—whether that was because he was supposedly Lamb’s friend, or because he was the Magnificent Bastard, Thomas wasn’t sure. He did lend it out when someone was ill or otherwise in particular need. 

“I saw, thanks.”

Thomas checked that everything was as correct as he could manage it. “All right, then,” he said to Rawlins.

“All right.”

Thomas and Corporal Jessop met in the ambulance yard at the appointed hour—they were getting a ride as far as the collecting post—and Captain Allenby arrived a few minutes later, his pack askew. After the exchange of salutes—rendered necessary by the fact that they were all wearing their forage caps—Thomas fixed it for him, in his role as batman.

Thomas had been to the collecting post in daylight before, but he’d only gone beyond it at night, where shellfire and long shadows made everything a sort of indistinct hell. By daylight, the scene was less viscerally terrifying, but more uncanny, with little patches of normalcy side-by-side with all the destruction—a dead horse lying beside a post-box, for instance, which made real for Thomas the fact that this blasted crater had, not two years ago, been a village. The rubble of houses and church could easily have been the remnants of some ancient and long-vanished civilization, but a post-box, that belonged to the modern world. 

As they got closer to the Front, their route took them through what had once been a wood. Most of it was reduced to charred stumps and churned-up mud, but there was one small bit—a dozen trees or so, and associated undergrowth—that was untouched. It must have been in a blind spot for the German guns, and an officer was sitting in it, reading a book. 

Any time the trench got a bit wider than it had to be for a carrying-party to pass through, there were men tucked into the spare nooks and crannies—some busy at their duties, some sleeping or carrying out various homely tasks: shaving, having a brew-up, writing a letter. Their progress toward the Front was marked by the steadily decreasing degree to which these men acknowledged that an officer was walking past them. 

Thomas was beginning to wonder whether it was his duty, as Captain Allenby’s batman, to suggest that he switch his forage cap for his tin one—not because of any particular danger; even distant shell-strikes were sporadic, but because it would advertise to the men that he wasn’t expecting to be saluted. It seemed that the cleanliness of his uniform was causing a bit of uncertainty on this point, and he knew from working in the men’s wards that an officer who stood too much on ceremony in the trenches was universally loathed. 

He was fairly sure that Allenby wouldn’t want to give that impression, if he knew, but Thomas hadn’t quite made up his mind how to say it when a portly sergeant tossed down his newspaper with obvious disgust, stood up slowly, and saluted in a manner Thomas could only describe as sarcastic. Captain Allenby blushed, returned the salute, and stopped to change his cap the moment they were past the man. 

So that solved the problem, but Thomas rather wished he could have spared him the embarrassment. 

When they arrived at the Aid Post, the three men from the Advanced Dressing Station were already there, and the outgoing group was clearly itching to leave. Captain Allenby also managed to notice this, and kept brief the ritual exchange of courtesies with the departing Medical Officer. Once he and his men had scarpered, Thomas and the others were free to poke about and get settled in.

Thomas had been to the Aid Post before, but never in conditions amenable to getting a sense of it. It was a dugout one, there being no sufficiently intact buildings in the area, but a fairly good one—well-timbered, with a ceiling high enough that even a tall man could stand upright, in the main room at least. The walls and ceiling were mostly reinforced with boards, and sacking in the places where they weren’t. In the middle of the room was a set of trestles where a stretcher-case could be laid to be worked on, and along one wall was a set of racks that would hold additional occupied stretchers, for cases waiting to be sent back. A cluster of empty ammunition boxes served as the waiting room for walking cases, and more ammunition boxes had been fashioned into cupboards to hold medicines, dressings, instruments, and so on. 

After having a look round, Thomas dumped his gear in a corner and went to help Captain Allenby get his own kit sorted. The Medical Officer’s quarters were in a smaller dugout to one side, connecting to the main one and separated by a wooden partition. 

“This isn’t so bad,” Allenby said, in the tone of one trying to convince himself. 

“No, sir,” Thomas agreed. Having seen Allenby’s regular billet, he could understand why he was dubious, but it was still a substantial step up from the barn—at least, if you put aside the possibility of dying in your sleep due to shellfire. The bunk had a spring mattress, sheets, and even a pillow, in addition to several standard-issue blankets. There was a shelf with an oil lamp on it—Thomas had been right to say he didn’t need to bring his patent one—a small desk, and a washstand with a cracked mirror hanging above it. 

Despite having never been in an officer’s dugout before, Thomas found it strangely familiar. Hours later, he would realize that what it reminded him of was the cubicles in the back of a queer club—like the one where he and Peter had gone, the night after their date in Kew Gardens. 

Once he’d got Allenby’s things sorted out, he picked up his own gear and looked about for Jessop, figuring he might as well find out where he was meant to stow it—and get a look at just how awful it was where he’d be sleeping. 

“In here, lad,” said Jessop, from behind a curtain fashioned out of a groundcloth. It was another subsidiary dugout, a little smaller and lower-ceilinged than Allenby’s one, with two bunks stacked one above the other. Corporal Jessop was in the process of arranging his blankets on the lower one, and Thomas was wondering what jammy bastard got the other when Jessop said, “Hope you don’t mind the upper berth, lad—I’m too old for that shite.”

“That’s fine,” Thomas said, to cover his surprise. He swung his gear up onto the bunk and took a look. They were plank beds, but with straw mattresses. 

According to one of the old-timers, they’d had straw in the barn at first—though not the luxury of ticks to put it in—but they’d had to throw it out when it got moldy. 

Their dugout didn’t have a desk—there wouldn’t have been room for it—but there was a washstand, and a shelf and some pegs for putting things on. “And to think I was telling the others I’d soon find out what could be worse than the barn,” he said. “I think I’d better lie, or they’ll all want to come.”

“Tha might feel differently when the night music starts,” Jessop warned him, adding, “We’re in here because we’re the first to be woken up when there’s an emergency—me to check on the casualty, you to wake the officer.”

“I figured there’d be a catch,” Thomas said. Still, it would be the first time since joining the Army that he’d slept in anything that could even generously be described as a bed, and he was looking forward to it. “What now?” he asked, as Jessop seemed nearly finished setting up his bunk.

“Now we have a brew-up, and after that we check how short of supplies the last lot left us,” Jessop said. “Go and fetch the others; they’re in the next dugout over.”

The next dugout over turned out to be a combination of orderlies’ quarters and storeroom. It was on the same general plan as their one, except with two sets of bunks, a somewhat lower ceiling, and a greater proportion of sacking to boards on the walls. The men, who were stowing their kit and arranging their bunks, were two of about Corporal Jessop’s vintage—probably Regular Army—and one closer to Thomas’s age. Feeling a bit self-conscious, Thomas cleared his throat and said, “Corporal’s got the kettle on, and after that we’re starting stock-taking.”

The men turned away from what they were doing, good-humoredly enough. One of the older blokes said, “I like that, cuppa before we get to work.”

“Corporal Jessop’s all right,” Thomas agreed. 

“How’s the officer?” the younger man asked. He was short and very muscular.

It took Thomas a moment to realize that he was asking what sort of officer he was, not how he was faring. “He’s good on wards,” Thomas said. “Not really what you’d call a military type.”

“That’s not bad,” said the other older man. “It’s when they aren’t, but pretend they are, that can get rough.”

“Aye,” said the younger man. “You reckon he knows your corporal’s been sent along as schoolmaster?”

“I reckon he does,” Thomas said. 

They trooped back over to the main dugout, where the tea was already brewing up. Thomas would learn quickly that there was nothing quite like the Post’s spirit stove for making tea—it was meant for sterilizing instruments, and so was of a particularly efficient kind. 

Once Corporal Jessop had handed round the tea, they introduced themselves. Farlow and Padgett, the two older men, were, as Thomas had guessed, Regular Army. The younger one was called Rouse, and Padgett said he was “A right clever sod, too.”

Thomas told himself firmly that the phrase did not remind him of anything at all.

They were finishing up the tea and beginning to talk about the plan for the stocktaking when Captain Allenby emerged from his room. They all stood and braced up, of course, and Allenby quite properly waggled his hand and muttered, “As you were.” 

Jessop sat back down again immediately, and the rest of them all followed suit. 

Captain Allenby handed a teacup to Jessop—he got a crockery one, while the rest of them had tin—and said, “I suppose I’ll just, er….”

Jessop said, “We’re about to start the stock-taking, sir, and we hope to have any necessary requisition forms ready for your signature when you get back from making yourself known to the other officers.” 

“Excellent,” said Captain Allenby, with undisguised relief. “Thank you.”

Once he’d gone, the three from the ADS exchanged nods of approval. 

Partway through the stock-taking, they got their first patient: a young bloke who’d cut his hand on some barbed wire the night before. Looking it over, Corporal Jessop said, “Why didn’t you bring this in earlier, lad?”

“Had to finish t’job, didn’t I?”

“Course you did,” Jessop agreed. “But after that?”

“After that was morning stand-to, and then I wanted to get a bit of kip, didn’t I?”

Jessop hmphed and said, “Hurts a bit more than it did last night, doesn’t it?”

The young soldier nodded.

“That’s on account of it’s starting to go septic,” Jessop told him. “Barrow?”

Thomas handed him the tetanus antitoxin, which he’d been preparing while Jessop talked.

“What’s that?” asked the soldier.

“It’s to stop you getting lockjaw,” Thomas told him. 

The soldier paled, and submitted to the injection. He protested again when Jessop began cleaning out the wound. “Do you have to dig into it like that?”

“I do, lad,” said Jessop.

“He does if you enjoy having two hands,” Thomas added. There was a bit of tea left in the Dixie, still somewhat warm, so he poured that into a tin cup and gave it to the bloke, saying, “Here, take your mind off it.”

Once the wound was cleaned and bandaged, Jessop sent the lad off with instructions to return tomorrow to have it checked again, “And tell your mates, they get so much as a scratch, they’re to come here and have it seen to, all right?”

“Yes, Corp,” he agreed.

It turned out that a lot of regimental work was like that—minor treatments combined with a healthy dose of what Captain Allenby called Educating the Men to Take Charge of Their Own Health. The lesson Jessop had given to the youth with the barbed wire cut was part of a series on Not Letting Small Problems Turn Into Big Ones. Others included Sanitation and Hygiene: Doing Your Best Under Difficult Conditions & Why You Should Bother, Assessing Risks & Using Common Sense in the Performance of Routine Tasks, and, once the weather took a turn for the worse, Taking Care of Your Feet so They Will Take Care of You. Thomas was able to contribute materially to the latter, as the first few trench foot cases of the winter had started to trickle in to Men’s Sick shortly before they left, and apparently his descriptions of the condition were fairly evocative. 

“That’s right, lad,” Jessop had said approvingly, when one of these cases had left. “We don’t want them getting the idea that getting bad feet is all about having a cozy lie-in in hospital and getting massages from pretty nurses.”

More serious cases averaged about two or three a day, but tended to come in clusters of a few at a time, with quiet stretches in between. The worst casualties came from shrapnel shells, which, if they happened to hit near an area where men had congregated, usually left a couple of men dead or mortally wounded, several more with serious injuries requiring them to be evacuated back at least as far as the Dressing Station, and a dozen or two with minor wounds to be treated at the Aid Post and observed for complications. 

The other kinds of shells—the HEs, the crumps, the Big Berthas—didn’t make much work for the Aid Post because they either killed you outright, if they hit directly, or left you no worse than a little shaken up, if they didn’t. The standard prescription for the latter was a cup of tea with a tot of rum in it.

Shelling could happen any time, day or night, but nighttime brought casualties in from no-man’s land. Most nights, several small groups went out on some errand or other—mending wire, observing the German positions, and so on. The cover of darkness made these activities somewhat less dangerous than the pure suicide they’d have been in the day, but a party spotted by the Hun was lucky if all they attracted was sniper fire—just as often, it was machine-gun fire or stick bombs. That sort of attack would usually leave the entire party incapacitated to one degree or another, which meant another party had to be sent out after them.

Sometimes, the men were in such a hurry to rescue their mates that they didn’t wait to figure out what had attracted the enemy’s attention in the first place, and wound up meeting the same fate. 

It was occasions like that that amounted for most of the times Thomas had to venture into no-man’s land. The regiment usually brought in its own wounded, but when there were a lot of casualties, someone from the RAMC had to go out to do first aid and rough field triage.

It was a little less than a week into their spell of trenches when Thomas was called upon to make one of these rescue parties. He found himself hesitating, just a bit, at the ladder, even though they’d waited for cloud cover before going out, and it was about a safe as it could be.

Rouse, who’d been teamed up with him for this exercise, said sympathetically, “The first one’s the worst—but once we’re back, you’ll be able to tell yourself you’ll never have to do it for the first time again.”

Thomas shook his head, said, “I’ve done it before,” and started up the ladder. 

That trip went all right, and it wasn’t long before Thomas was scrambling up out of trenches as if he’d been born doing it. It really was necessary, at these times, for someone with a bit of medical training to go. The men, if left to themselves, would bring in the most seriously wounded man first, when what they ought to have done was bring in the one who was most seriously wounded but still had a chance of survival. The officers were even worse; if they were conscious at all, they’d try to insist that they be left until all the men had been taken in, no matter how bad their wounds were or how light the men’s. But in that situation, officers and men alike would bow to the authority of anyone with RAMC on his uniform, even a lance-corporal who’d been a footman barely six months ago.

The danger for which the men reserved the greatest superstitious horror was sniper fire, which in truth resulted in far fewer casualties than the others—and scarcely any work at all for the Aid Post, as most of its victims were killed instantly. Thomas had to admit, there was something profoundly unsettling about seeing a man going about his ordinary business and then suddenly fall over, with a perfect hole drilled into his head. In these cases, the tea-and-rum prescription was issued to the immediate bystanders, and if the situation permitted, Captain Allenby would recommend that their officers find them something to do which would keep them too busy to dwell on it, but in which a moment’s inattention was not likely to prove fatal. Filling sandbags, for instance, was good, but filling Mills bombs was not. 

Apart from the surprisingly nice dugout—which both Rouse and Thomas’s own observations confirmed was an unusually good one—the living conditions met Thomas’s expectations. The food situation ranged from grim to dire. Rations were even more monotonous than those at the station, and on a good day were brought up lukewarm at best. On a bad day, the ration-parties were delayed by shelling, weather, or both, and the rations arrived stone cold and so late that your stomach thought your throat had been cut. Even worse than the food was the general state of filth. The Aid Post had been strategically situated in a spot with good drainage, but once the weather turned, the forward line turned into a pig wallow, and the men brought the mud with them when they turned up wounded or sick. The orderlies’ primary occupation, when not actively treating patients, was trying to keep the instruments clean, and at least scraping the top layer of filth off of everything else. 

“It’s worse in the spring,” Padgett informed Thomas, cheerfully, one day when they were making a futile attempt at mopping the floor. “Nobody’s as careful about sanitation when it’ll all just freeze anyway, so when it all starts turning warm….Phew!”

Rouse told Padgett, “You’ve nothing to talk about until you’ve been to Flanders. The rain never seems to stop, and it’s all flat as billiard-table. You end up in mud up to your chest. Blokes drowned in it; I’m no’ jesting.”

“Aye, he’s right,” said Farlow. “My sister’s boy was up that way. He said there weren’t no words to describe it.” He shook his head solemnly, then continued in a more jocular tone, “And one fine day, they were marching back to rest camp after a spell in trenches, some bloomin’ idiot from the General Staff rides up on ’is ’orse and makes them stand at attention for a quarter of an hour while he shouts at them about how their marchin’ order is ragged, and what’s worse, some of ‘em haven’t got their shoulder straps buttoned!”

Thomas had learned that that sort of story—one with a clear villain—was what you turned to, when you’d accidentally got a glimpse of the futility and absurdity of the whole thing. Men fighting and dying over control of a patch of mud deep enough to drown in could never be funny, but an idiotic officer always could.

At least, in hindsight it always could. Thomas had his first face-to-face encounter with one of the breed—at least, one not weakened by wounds or illness—when the regiment they supported rotated out, and a new one rotated in. Corporal Jessop was addressing the men from the regiment who’d been detailed to act as stretcher-bearers and extra hands in times of heavy casualties. He’d moved on from explaining what was expected of them, and was telling them what to expect from Captain Allenby, only to be interrupted by the arrival of a very young lieutenant in a forage cap and a suspiciously clean uniform. 

He arrived just in time to hear Jessop saying something like, “You’ll find young Allenby a pleasant officer—”

Rouse spotted the lieutenant, shouted, “Hut!” and they all snapped to attention. 

The lieutenant took his time returning their salutes, then strode over to Corporal Jessop, his boot-heels ringing on the duckboard floor, and said, “What did you just say?”

“Sir, I was telling the men that they’ll find our medical officer, Captain Allenby, to be a fine and capable officer.”

“Only you didn’t call him _Captain Allenby_ , did you?”

“No, sir. I spoke carelessly, and I apologize.”

That wasn’t good enough for the lieutenant, of course. He proceeded to tear a strip off poor Jessop, banging on about how respect for an officer’s commission was respect for the King, and threatening to put him on report and have his stripes.

There was a lot more to it than that, but Thomas tried not to listen too closely. He’d not have listened at all, or watched, but the lieutenant had left them all at attention, so there was nothing to be done but stand there. 

Nothing, that is, but say, “Yes, sir,” when the lieutenant concluded by cautioning him and Rouse not to learn from Jessop’s “disgraceful example.” 

It was a bloody awful show, and once the lieutenant had left—never having said what he was there for in the first place—Thomas retreated as soon as he decently could to the storeroom/orderlies’ quarters, for a calming cigarette. 

Rouse joined him a few moments later. “Like watching your old dad grovel in front of the pit boss, innit?” he said sympathetically.

“Don’t have a dad,” Thomas said, irrelevantly. “Who does he think he is, anyway?” God knew Lord Grantham could be a fathead, but he wouldn’t do _that_. Nor Mr. Matthew, neither. 

Rouse shrugged. “Some public-school puppy, I reckon. I was a corporal for a bit too, you know. Till I lost my stripes for calling one of that lot a gobshite.”

“Why’d you do that?” Thomas asked.

“Cause he was being a gobshite.” He lit a cigarette. “It was to do with some bloke who had the shell-shock real bad. Bangin’ on about how he was a coward and a disgrace to his uniform and all that. It got my blood up, cause the bloke was a miner, and that takes guts, you know?” 

Thomas had only the vaguest acquaintance with mining—either the civilian or the Army kind—but he nodded and said, “Too right.”

“My trouble is, I spent the last couple of years before the war where I had to stand up to blokes like that, and not let ‘em get away with thinking they were any better than me.”

“Where’s _that_?” Even if you were fucking them, you _still_ had to let them think they were better than you, generally.

“University. Scholarship lad, you know. Studying to be a doctor, of all fucking things. What I really ought to have done was gone back and finished—I’d be almost done now—but I thought this would be good experience.” He scoffed. “Which goes to show I’m not as fucking clever as I thought I was.”

“My brother knew somebody like that,” Thomas noted. “His dad was a miner, too.”

Rouse gave him a sidelong glance. “I’m no’ sure there’s two of us. Where was your brother posted?”

“11th General,” Thomas said, wishing he hadn’t brought it up. “And then some other places, and then he went down on the _Albion_.”

“Fuck me blind,” said Rouse. “You’re never Fitz’s brother.”

“We had different dads,” Thomas said. And different mums, when it came down to it. “He always called the bloke ‘Frank,’ in his letters. That’s you?”

“It is,” said Rouse. “Small bloody war. We were all fucking gutted, what happened to Fitz.”

Thomas nodded. “The Jewish bloke wrote to me. Sha-something.”

“Shapiro,” Rouse supplied. “Fuck—Fitz talked about you all the time.”

“I…really can’t talk about him,” Thomas said. He was already off-balance; the last thing he needed was to start crying or something. God only knew what they did to you for crying in front of an officer. 

Rouse nodded. “You don’t have to explain it to me. I—we lost a lot of our own, up at Loos. I transferred down here to get away from the memories.”

Thank God Rouse wasn’t going to press—Thomas felt a bit uncomfortable sitting here with him, now he knew he’d known Peter. 

When they finished their cigarettes, Rouse said, “Look, I came in here to make sure you knew someone’s got to let Captain Allenby know, before that stream of piss lands Jessop in the shit. He’ll be able to fix it up, seeing as he outranks him.”

Thomas nodded slowly. He could see where this was going. “And I guess it can’t be Jessop, seeing as he’s the one that’s in the shit.”

“Right. And seein’ as you’re his bloody batman….”

“I’m next up,” Thomas said. Of course he was. “All right. Any idea what I should say?”

“Well, the first thing we’ve got to do if find out is whether he actually minds Jessop calling him ‘young Allenby.’ If he doesn’t, it’ll be easy….”

It took them a couple more cigarettes apiece, but they got a strategy worked out. 

And it wasn’t long before Thomas had the opportunity of using it. Allenby had been invited to dinner in the dugout of the newly-arrived officers, and Thomas was called upon to clean him up as best he could for the occasion. The Captain was shaving, and Thomas was brushing his coat, when Allenby gave him the opening. “How did it go with the new stretcher-bearers?”

“They seem a decent lot, sir,” said Thomas. “About half of them have done it before.” He brushed a few more strokes. “There was one small problem, when Corporal Jessop was giving them their orientation.”

“What’s that?”

Thomas hesitated. This was the tricky bit. “Well, one of the new officers stopped by, and I’m afraid he happened to hear the Corporal saying something that, out of context, sounded a bit impertinent.” 

“What was he talking about?”

Thomas hesitated again. “About you, sir.”

Allenby sighed, and looked away from the mirror, at Thomas. “Was it ‘young Allenby,’ or something worse?”

That answered the question of whether or not he knew he was called that. “That was it, sir.”

“I’ve been meaning to say something about that. I never really saw any harm in it—and I know he doesn’t _mean_ any harm—but I’ve had it brought to my attention that it’s not really setting the best example for the other men.”

“Yes, sir,” said Thomas. Damn, this might take a bit of maneuvering after all. “I’m glad you know he didn’t mean any harm. He was ever so apologetic about it when the Lieutenant brought it to his attention.”

“Lieutenant Sherwood?” Captain Allenby asked.

“He didn’t give his name, sir.” 

“I was with the other three at the time, so it must have been,” said Allenby. “They say he’s….” He paused to choose his words. “Recently arrived from the officers’ training school, and a bit keen on matters of protocol.”

A wet-behind-the-ears would-be martinet, then. “I see, sir. We’re all a bit worried he’s going to make trouble for poor Corporal Jessop.”

Allenby nodded, and turned back to the mirror. “I’ll speak to him at dinner. His brother officers say he’s been a bit resistant to suggestions on the subject, but if it comes down to it, I do outrank him.”

“Thank you, sir.”

A short while later, they went back out into the main room, and Allenby said, “Jessop? A word.”

Thomas made himself busy on the other side of the room, as Corporal Jessop braced up in front of the officer and said, “Sir!” in a parade-ground voice.

“Stand easy,” Allenby said. “Barrow’s told me all about it. Consider yourself reprimanded, all right? And I’ll tell the lieutenant I’ve got the matter in hand.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Won’t do it again, sir.”

“Good. Uh, dismissed.”

_That_ was how you did it. The “all right” may have been a little lacking in gravitas, but there was no need to make an unseemly display of the whole thing.

A couple of nights later, Thomas and Rouse were summoned to the forward trench. Two walking wounded had just come back from a patrol of six, that had come under machine-gun fire. The others, they said, were still alive, and they’d gotten them into the shelter of a shell-hole before coming back themselves.

While Rouse started bandaging up the more seriously wounded of the two, Thomas got the other one to show him the position. “Any idea how they saw you?” The moon was barely a sliver, and low on the horizon. 

“If I had to guess,” the man said, “that’d be the fucking lieutenant’s shiny brass.”

Thomas sighed. “Do I even need to ask which lieutenant?”

“You do not.”

“All right,” he said, and called “Bearers up!”

The stretcher-bearers from the regiment presented themselves, and Rouse looked up at him, raising an eyebrow in question. 

“I’ve got it,” Thomas told him. To the bearers, he said, “I need three to go with me, and four ready to go when we get back, if I give you the OK.”

He got his seven volunteers, and sorted them out so that each party had some men who had done night work in no-man’s land before. “Once we’re up there, we spread out a bit. Stay low, don’t go in a straight line, and lead with your right shoulder—that makes you a smaller target, and lets them see your Red Cross armband, in case they care. All right?”

The others agreed, and they went up. 

The patrol’s shell-hole was further away than Thomas would have liked, and there was one hair-raising moment when a flare went up, from the German side, putting the immediate area into plain daylight for a space of several seconds. “ _Scatter_!” Thomas shouted, when two men froze like rabbits.

Their instinctive response could have gotten them killed, but Fritz must have decided he _did_ care to honor the Red Cross that night, because the flare wasn’t followed by either sniper _or_ machine-gun fire. They scuttled the rest of the way to the shell-hole without incident. 

Switching on a shielded torch, Thomas looked at each of the wounded in turn. Two were conscious—Sherwood, who was sitting half-upright and clutching a field dressing to his chest, and a man with a leg wound. It was a bad one, the knee barely recognizable, but he’d got a tourniquet around his thigh, so Thomas could disregard him for now. 

The others were a gut wound—probably passed out from shock—and a man who was so drenched in blood that Thomas couldn’t tell where the wound was. As he started searching for it, the leg wound said, “In his chest.”

There it was. There was a sodden dressing stuck over a crater just below his collarbone. When Thomas peeled away the dressing, the blood bubbled up sluggishly, in time with the man’s pulse. “Here,” he said, getting out another dressing. “Keep pressure on that.”

The leg wound did so, saying hopefully, “It’s bleedin’ slower than it was.”

That was because he was nearly out of blood to lose. And even if they got him back to the Aid Post before he ran completely dry, there was nothing they could do. 

Thomas moved on to the gut wound. That was a nasty one, too, but they’d done an all right job with the field dressings; he might survive long enough to die of infection in a base hospital. He set one of the experienced stretcher-bearers to changing the field dressings and turned back to Sherwood. 

“I’m,” _gasp_ , “fine,” he said, as Thomas carefully peeled away the dressing to have a look at his wound. “Help,” _gasp_ ,” the others,” _gasp_.

Oh, for pity’s sake. He really was a kid, wasn’t he? Shot before he even had a chance to learn there were no points given for facing death like the hero of a boys’ adventure story. Tossing the old dressing aside and getting out a new one, Thomas asked the leg wound, “Was he breathing easier before?”

“He was,” the man confirmed. “’e seemed almost all right when we first got down here. He did the bandaging on my leg.”

“Right,” said Thomas, carefully not thinking about how it was that he knew there was a type of chest wound that went like that, and that the poor sod that had it could be saved if he got into the hands of someone with the right bit of know-how quick enough. “We take him, and him,” he said to the stretcher-bearers, indicating Sherwood and the gut wound. 

“No,” said Sherwood. “Cart,” _gasp_ , “wright,” _gasp_ , “’s worse.” 

Thomas glanced at the leg wound. “Is that Cartwright?” he asked, indicating the other chest wound.

“Yes.” _Gasp_.

“He’s past help, sir.”

“Billings,” _gasp_ , “then.”

“Billings could stay here till Tuesday and still be all right.” He’d lose the leg, if they didn’t get the tourniquet off soon, but he’d probably lose it anyway. “You, on the other hand, are in a pretty bad way, but there just might be something the doctor can do. Sir.”

Turning to Billings—the leg wound—Thomas went on, “The next party should be along in less than half an hour. But we’ll leave you some supplies, in case something changes and you have to wait a bit longer.” One of the stretcher-bearers started getting out the rations and water bottles they’d brought along for this eventuality, and Thomas gave Billings a couple of morphine tablets, tucking a few more into his breast pocket. “If we haven’t got you out of here by dawn, you can take some more then, and another dose in the afternoon.” Billings would already know that if they hadn’t rescued him by morning, they wouldn’t be able to try again until nightfall. “Keep the tourniquet on. Have you got cigarettes? Here.” Thomas gave him a fistful.

Lieutenant Sherwood was still trying to argue about it as they loaded him onto the stretcher, but Thomas told the stretcher-bearers to ignore him. “We stay low, and keep moving,” he told them. “Even if they send up a flare,” he added, looking at the two who had frozen. “My guess is they realize what we’re up to and have decided to leave us alone, but if they do fire at us, hit the ground and crawl to the nearest shell-hole. We’ll reassess from there whether we can recover the wounded again.”

“You mean…leave them?” the youngest of the stretcher-bearers asked.

Dropping his voice low enough that the two patients wouldn’t hear, he said, “If the trip back doesn’t go smoothly, neither one of them has much of a chance, whatever we do.” The gut wound barely had a chance either way, and Sherwood did only if Thomas had guessed right about what was wrong with him _and_ if there were no delays getting him back. “Come on.”

They heaved both stretchers up out of the shell hole. “We’ll go first,” he said to the man who was carrying Sherwood with him, “and you two give us about thirty seconds’ lead. No point in us getting bunched up.” The others nodded understanding. “Let’s go.”

They went. After they’d been running for a minute or two, there was a burst of machine gun fire, but it wasn’t close—aimed at a combatant party somewhere else, maybe. Still, it made the bloke at the other end of the stretcher hesitate, until Thomas yelled, “Keep going, you bastard!”

At the parapet, they handed the stretcher over to the waiting bearers and threw themselves back in, getting themselves sorted out just in time to help bring in the second stretcher. Rouse was already looking at Sherwood, so Thomas helped the young bearer to his feet, saying, “You all right?”

He nodded, shakily. 

Thomas caught the eye of one of the man from the other end of the stretcher. “I’ve got him,” he said. 

Nodding, Thomas turned back to Sherwood and Rouse. “Go and get Allenby,” Rouse was saying to Padgett, who had turned up while they were gone. “Tell ‘im it’s a collapsed lung.” 

“Collapsed lung,” Padgett repeated. “Is that—”

“Go!” Rouse shouted. 

Padgett went. 

One of the men from the second stretcher party asked Thomas, “Are we up now?”

“Two of you are,” Thomas told him. “When you’re ready. It’s a leg wound, he’s got some time. The other one….” He hesitated. “He was still hanging in there when we left, but I doubt he’ll still be alive when you get there. It’s up to you.”

The other four men exchanged looks, and hoisted both stretchers up out of the trench.

Thomas took a moment to look for the other three men from his party—they were all sitting together, trying to buck up the young lad, who was having a bit of a wobbly spell—and told them to come back to the Aid Post in a bit if they wanted an extra rum ration, then grabbed a helper from among the spectators and took Cartwright back to the Aid Post. They passed Captain Allenby on the way; he had his medical bag and was hauling arse. 

Jessop was holding down the fort; he had one of the walking wounded on a stretcher in the rack, and the other was sitting up and drinking a cup of tea. Seeing them, Jessop took over the other end of the stretcher and helped Thomas slide him into another of the racks. “Any more coming?” he asked.

“Second stretcher-party’s just gone out,” Thomas said. “They’ll bring in at least one. A leg wound and…the other one’s a chest.”

The tea-drinker looked over at them. “Cartwright, or the Lieutenant?” he asked.

“Cartwright, I’m afraid,” Thomas said. 

The tea-drinker swore.

“Lieutenant Sherwood’s the collapsed lung?” asked Jessop. 

Thomas nodded. 

Jessop started preparing a morphine injection for the gut wound. “Those are nasty, but there might be something Captain Allenby can do. Have you seen one before?”

Thomas shook his head. “No—just heard of it. If you’ve got this covered, I’d better go back up before the other stretchers get back.” That was true, and also gave Jessop no opportunity to ask any further questions.

When he got back to the forward trench, the men on the periscope told him that the second stretcher party had just gone into the shell hole, so he went over to see how Rouse and Captain Allenby were managing with Sherwood.

The young lieutenant was sitting up on his stretcher, his coat and shirt open, taking deep breaths. “All right, sir?” Thomas asked, pitching the question somewhere between him and Captain Allenby, who was crouched next to the stretcher. 

It was Captain Allenby who answered, standing up as he did so. “Yes—we got to him in the nick of time. What are we expecting in the next lot?”

Thomas told him, “A leg, alert and stable, and a chest hemorrhage, unconscious, pulse nearly undetectable.”

Allenby nodded. “I’ll go back to the post with this one,” he decided. “Rouse!”

The next stretcher-party arrived moments after Allenby and Rouse had left with Sherwood. The two pairs hadn’t thought to stagger their departure from the shell hole—and Thomas hadn’t thought to tell them to—so they arrived on top of each other. Thomas helped hand the stretchers down, then checked on Billings, the leg wound 

He was considerably less alert than he’d been, but that was thanks to the morphine. His pulse and breathing were still strong. “He can go up to the Aid Post—the Corporal’ll tell you where to put him.”

Then he turned to check Cartwright. The fresh dressing that Thomas had put on him wasn’t even soaked through, and he was stone dead. He probably had been when they picked him up, but the two bearers were looking at Thomas expectantly. He shook his head. “Put him aside for the Padre.”

Feeling suddenly tired, Thomas trudged up to the Aid Post. Captain Allenby had the gut wound—whose name Thomas still didn’t know—on the trestles; Billings had taken his place on the stretcher racks, and Sherwood was on his stretcher on the floor—because, it took Thomas only seconds to realize, he was refusing to lie down and shut up. “Where’s Cartwright?” he demanded, a hysterical edge to his voice, the moment he saw Thomas.

“He didn’t make it, sir,” said Thomas, apologetically. “He’d lost too much blood.”

“How would _you_ know?” Sherwood demanded, his voice rising in pitch and volume. “You thought I was dying, and I’m fine. I _told_ you to bring him back. I _told_ you. If you had just _listened to me_ , he wouldn’t be—”

Suddenly and horrifyingly, Lieutenant Sherwood started to cry. 

_Oh, Christ_. This was the first time Sherwood had lost a man under his command, wasn’t it? He’d never been on the line before, so it had to be. Thomas stood frozen, completely at a loss for what he was supposed to do about this development.

Fortunately, two other people in the room outranked him, in addition to the weeping lieutenant. Allenby, halfway up to his elbows in the other bloke’s abdomen, said, “Jessop, can you…?”

“I’ve got it, sir,” said Jessop, going to the young man’s side. 

“Barrow,” Allenby continued, “see if you can round up one of his brother officers.”

“Sir.”

As he left, he heard Allenby continue, “Farlow, put the kettle on. Padgett….”

This time of night, with patrols out, the company officers could be anywhere, but the best place to start looking for one was in their dugout. Even if there wasn’t one of them there, their servant might be, and he’d know where to try next. 

Luckily, there was one there, sitting at a small desk doing paperwork. “Sir,” Thomas said.

The officer looked up, and it was Lieutenant Crawley. “Barrow,” he said. “What are you…never mind. What is it?”

“Captain Allenby has requested your help, sir. It’s Lieutenant Sherwood.”

“Oh,” said Lieutenant Crawley, capping his pen and reaching for his tin hat. “What’s he done now?”

“He’s at the Aid Post, and he’s a little…overwrought, sir. His patrol ran into some trouble.”

“Is he hurt?” Lieutenant Crawley asked, heading for the coat-rack.

There was only one officer’s greatcoat on it, so Thomas took it down and held it for Lieutenant Crawley to put on. “He is, and one of the men has died. He’s not taking it well. The whole patrol was injured, so Captain Allenby has his hands full, and he’d like another officer to….” Thomas trailed off, unsure of how exactly to describe what was required.

“To hold his hand,” Lieutenant Crawley said. “Yes, I understand.” Buttoning his coat, he added, “We’re not exactly chums, but I’ll do my best.”

They hurried back to the Aid Post. By the time they got there, Sherwood was weeping into Jessop’s shoulder. Thomas averted his eyes, and helped Captain Allenby finish scattering disinfectant onto the gut wound and bandaging him up. 

“I’ll have a look at the leg, next,” Allenby said, so Thomas and Rouse put the gut wound up on the racks and brought out the leg—Billings. He was pretty dozy, and did nothing more than lift his head and grunt when Allenby probed at his wound. “How long has this tourniquet been on?”

“I’m not sure, sir,” said Thomas. “He said that Lieutenant Sherwood did it, before he started having trouble breathing.”

“Did you try loosening it?” Captain Allenby asked.

“No, sir.” 

“Probably just as well. He got it on before there was too much blood loss, but in this mess, I’d be astonished if the femoral artery’s intact. Get some gauze ready.”

Thomas did so, and Allenby loosened the tourniquet. There was a sudden spurt of blood. Thomas managed to catch most of it with the gauze, and all of the second spurt. After that, Captain Allenby tightened the tourniquet again, saying, “Yes, we’ll be leaving that on. Hand me the—” Rouse handed him the iodoform powder. “Thank you.”

Once he’d disinfected and bandaged that wound, he said, “We’ll send all five back to the dressing station.” He glanced over at Jessop, who would normally assign the orderlies their tasks, but had his hands full with Lieutenant Sherwood—literally; he was still clinging on to Jessop and sniveling. “Rouse, go to the signals hut and phone the collecting post, to have ambulances ready for three stretcher cases and two walkers, then phone the 47th and give them the case details. Padgett, round up bearers—ten if you can get them; I don’t want the two lightly wounded walking if it can be helped. Farlow, you’re on tea and cigarettes; Barrow, get started on the tally-cards.”

Tally-cards were the labels, like large luggage tags, that they attached to each patient in transit. Thomas often wrote them out, because he had the best handwriting of any of them. He grabbed five blank ones and started taking down the essential details of each case, as Captain Allenby gave them to him: initial diagnosis, treatments so far, and most importantly, how much morphine each case had already had, and when. 

Lieutenant Sherwood’s condition was described as “pneumothorax,” which Thomas had to ask how to spell. By that point, the Lieutenant himself had begun to pull himself together a bit and take an interest in what was going on around him. Thomas would have preferred it if he’d kept on having hysterics for another minute or two. 

With the medical details written down, Captain Allenby slipped out, and Thomas moved on to collecting the men’s pay-books, so he could get their full names and service numbers. He took his time with that, and with putting the pay-books back and hanging the tags on the men’s buttons, because the next thing up was to get Lieutenant Sherwood’s details, and he’d just as soon leave that for after Captain Allenby had got back, if he had a choice in the matter. 

By the time he’d dragged the task out as much as he could, Sherwood was sitting up and trying to look like he’d never cried in his life, and giving some kind of report to Lieutenant Crawley. Farlow managed to give him a cup of tea and a cigarette without getting his head bitten off, so Thomas approached him cautiously. “Sir, I just need your details for your medical record.”

“S-H-E-R-W-O-O-D.” 

“Thank you, sir.” He could have figured that part out for himself. “And your Christian name?”

“Christopher.”

Thomas wrote it. “Service number?”

Sherwood gave it, and his regiment and battalion. 

Thomas took it down. “All right. That’s all I need, sir.” He went to put the tag on him, and Sherwood flinched dramatically. 

“You can put it on yourself if you’d rather, lad—sir,” said Jessop, taking the card from Thomas and handing it to Sherwood. “It just goes over the button, like that.”

Thomas retreated. 

A few moments later, Captain Allenby did come back. He met Thomas’s eye and nodded. Thomas had no idea what he meant to convey with this signal, but nodded back. Allenby went over to where Sherwood, Jessop, and Lieutenant Crawley were sitting and pulled up a crate to sit on. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Fine,” said Sherwood. “Sir.”

“I’ve just had a look at Corporal Cartwright. His wound was severe, and he lost too much blood, too quickly for anyone to have done anything about it. Not Barrow, not me, and not you.”

“Yes, sir,” said Sherwood, dully.

“Now, Private Billings, on the other hand—he said you put the tourniquet on his leg?”

“Yes, sir. I did First Aid in Scouts.”

_Scouts_. Christ. Thomas wished he wasn’t listening to this. He didn’t want to _pity_ Sherwood. But the next thing that needed to be done was tidying up the treatment area, and he couldn’t decently leave it for Farlow to do on his own. He busied himself with sorting dressings to be laundered from ones to be burnt.

“You made a very neat job of it,” said Allenby. “Leg wounds—you may know—can bleed a great deal, if the major blood vessel is severed. His was. He could very well have lost a dangerous amount of blood as well, before my chaps got there, if you hadn’t known what to do.”

“It was my fault he got hurt, sir,” said Sherwood, wretchedly. “It was my first patrol, and I got every one of my men hurt. And I got Cartwright k—” His voice broke. “—illed.”

Allenby nodded. “Yes,” he said gravely. “You did. I don’t know whether there’s anything you could have done differently to avoid getting them—and yourself—hurt. But you were in command of them, so what happened is your responsibility, whether you did anything wrong or not.”

Sherwood sniffled.

“Now, you’re looking at a few months’ convalescence, but there’s every likelihood that you’ll be cleared for active service again at the end of it. The only thing you can do now—for Cartwright; for anyone—is to think about how you can use this to become a better officer.”

“Yes, sir.” He hesitated. “But _how_ ….?”

“To start with, you’re alive, and you’re probably going to be fine, because Lance-Corporal Barrow and Private Rouse knew what to do. If Barrow had _listened to you_ , Cartwright would still be dead, and you probably would be, too. Do you understand the moral of this story, or do I need to act it out with puppets?”

“No, sir. I mean—I understand.” 

“The other part—whether you did anything wrong on the patrol or not—I don’t know. But there’ll be plenty of other line officers where you’re going. I recommend that you ask them.”

“He’s right,” Lieutenant Crawley said. “The training school doesn’t teach us anything that’s worth knowing, about how to fight in this kind of war. You have to learn it from men who have done it. Brother officers, and your NCOs.”

Thomas saw out of the corner of his eye that Sherwood was nodding. “Yes.” He heaved in a deep breath. “I see.”

“Are you starting to have trouble breathing again?” Captain Allenby asked. 

“A little,” said Sherwood.

Thomas tossed the handful of bandages he was holding into the bin, and stood by in case he was needed.

“Let’s have a listen,” said Allenby, taking out his stethoscope. Jessop helped Sherwood open his coat again and lean forward. “Take a deep breath for me. One more. All right. I think that we had better do the treatment again. Barrow? Jessop?”

The three of them went over to the corner by the instrument cabinets. Speaking in a low voice, Allenby asked, “Have either of you ever aspirated a pneumothorax before?”

They both shook their heads. Jessop added, “I’ve seen it done, sir.”

“Good,” he said. “Then you’re going to do this one, and then go with him to the Dressing Station, in case it needs to be done again _en route_. I don’t like how quickly it’s filled up again.”

“Sir,” said Jessop, a bit dubiously.

“It’ll be fine. I’ve already done the tricky part, and I’ll walk you through it.” Captain Allenby went on to explain the procedure—sucking the excess air out of the chest cavity with a large needle, just as Thomas had heard before. “The really important part, if you do have to stop and do this in the field, is keeping the needle sterile, and cleaning the site thoroughly. We don’t want to introduce a lot of germs into his thoracic cavity.”

“Yes, sir,” Jessop said, a little more confidently. “I suppose it’s not too different from drawing blood, when you get down to it.”

“No, not terribly different. The initial injection took quite a bit more force, but you’ll be going in through the existing puncture. That should also make it easier to tell when you’ve hit the pleural space—if you encounter resistance, you’ll have gone in too far.” 

“Yes, sir. And what’s the pleural space when it’s at home?”

“Oh—the space between the chest wall and the lung. It’s normally quite small, but since the reason we’re doing this is that there’s a great big pocket of air in there, it’ll be considerably easier to find.”

“I see, sir. Well, I think I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

Captain Allenby nodded. “I’ll give him a hair more morphine before we start—really, I’m surprised he’s still upright—but it might be best if we…allow him to form the impression that you have done one of these before. We’ll play it like I’m describing the procedure for Barrow’s benefit. All right?”

They agreed to this plan, but while Captain Allenby giving Sherwood his injection, Rouse returned. 

“Oh,” Allenby said. “There you are. Did you get through to them?”

“Yes, sir. Wires were down, but they were nearly done with the repairs, so I waited there.”

“Good. Have _you_ done an aspiration on a pneumothorax before?”

Thomas thought that, if Lieutenant Sherwood had not been under the influence of a morphine injection, the slight emphasis that Allenby placed on _you_ might have given the game away, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“No, sir.”

“Observe this one, then. I’ll explain the procedure as Corporal Jessop performs it.”

Thomas wasn’t sure if he was still supposed to play audience, now that Rouse was here, but he hadn’t been told to leave, so he thought he might as well watch. Lieutenant Crawley was still hanging about as well, and Allenby didn’t tell _him_ to leave, either. 

While Thomas and Rouse got Sherwood out of his shirt and coat, Allenby started by explaining the indications for the procedure, drawing their attention to Sherwood’s labored breathing. “In the field, you can let it get a bit worse than this before you aspirate. It’s much better to do this in a hospital. But we know that this particular case progresses rapidly, so we’re going to do it while conditions are the best we’re going to get. Jessop, if he’s about at this stage when you get to the collecting post, for instance, I should recommend doing it there, rather than risk having to stop the ambulance on the way.”

“Yes, sir,” said Jessop.

Allenby went on to explain how he’d chosen where to stick the needle, passing the stethoscope around so that they could all—except Lieutenant Crawley—hear the difference between the lung and the air pocket in the pleural space. 

“Don’t I just go in the spot you marked, sir?” Jessop asked. Allenby had drawn a circle round the previous needle-hole, with an indelible pencil.

“Yes, that’s right. It’s not terribly likely that any of you will need to know how to choose a site for one of these—well, Rouse, perhaps, after the war. But you want a doctor to do the initial one, if at all possible.” He continued, “Our needle’s sterile, so the next step is to disinfect the site.” As Thomas did so, he went on to explain, “It may be necessary to repeat this procedure multiple times before the patient can be gotten into surgery, and the site must be cleaned, and the needle sterilized, just as carefully each time. Now—Jessop, slide the needle in. The hole’s already there, so there should be very little resistance.”

They all held their breaths, Lieutenant Sherwood included, as Jessop inserted the needle. 

“A bit further, I think you’ll find,” Allenby said. “That’s it. Pull the plunger back, slowly.” As Jessop did so, he explained, “If you’ve gotten your diagnosis wrong, the syringe might start to fill up with blood or fluid. In an absolutely dire emergency, you can proceed with draining it the same way, but it’s even more important to get the patient into surgery. This one’s going as expected—you can withdraw the needle now, and express the air.”

He listened to Sherwood’s lungs again. “We haven’t quite got it all, so we’re going to do it again,” he said. “In the field, you might just do it once at a time, since it’ll be hard to tell how big the air pocket still is, but again, these are the best conditions we’re going to have for a while, so we’ll make a thorough job of it. Now, what are you going to do before you reinsert the needle?”

“Clean it, and the site, sir,” Jessop said.

“Give the man a cigar. Go on.”

The second round went just as smoothly as the first, and soon they were doing Sherwood’s clothes back up. Allenby said, “Barrow, put on his card, needle aspiration and a quarter-grain of morphine at—” He checked his watch. “0330.”

After that, the next order of business was starting all five wounded on their journey to the dressing station. Padgett had managed to find the ten requested stretcher-bearers—who had been patiently waiting in the storeroom for a while now—so Captain Allenby sent them off with Jessop and Padgett as medical escorts.

“Well,” said Captain Allenby to Lieutenant Crawley, who was picking himself up off the floor and dusting himself off, “if you haven’t to rush off to your duties, I think we can spare of a cup of tea.” 

“Thank you,” said Lieutenant Crawley. “That might be just what I need to get through till morning-stand to.” As Thomas started fixing the tea, he went on, “What you said to him, about the patrol, was rather good. Do you mind if I borrow it, should the occasion arise?”

“By all means,” said Allenby. “I thought it was rather good, when I was on the receiving end of it, myself. During my medical training.”

“Ah,” said Lieutenant Crawley. “First time you lost a patient?”

“First time I lost one I thought I had a chance of saving,” Captain Allenby said, with a nod. “The last thing I wanted to hear was that I wasn’t to blame—because I knew it wasn’t true. Thank you, by the way, for sitting with him. Jessop and Padgett are both good at that sort of thing, but….”

“But considering what he’s like, you wanted an officer,” Lieutenant Crawley said. “I understand.” Thomas handed him a cup of tea, and he said, “Thanks—and how are you doing, Barrow?”

“Well enough, sir.”

“I thought you were at a dressing station. Have you been transferred?”

“Seconded, sir, along with Captain Allenby and Corporal Jessop. Just for a bit.” They were due to go back to the station in less than a week.

“I’ll have to let them all know I’ve seen you, next time I write.”

“So will I, sir.” He hadn’t written to anyone since before they’d come to the Front. Quite a bit before. “Have they had that benefit concert yet?”

“They’re planning it for around Christmas, and then another one in the spring, I believe.”

For a moment, Thomas wondered what he’d be doing, if he was still there, but quashed that thought. “That seems sensible. Having it at Christmas time, I mean.” Everyone was more inclined to open their wallets that time of year.

“Yes—I suppose it’ll keep everyone’s spirits up,” said Lieutenant Crawley. 

Captain Allenby came over, carrying two cups of tea. Handing one to Thomas, he said, “I hadn’t realized you two were acquainted.”

Thomas hesitated. Unfortunately, so did Lieutenant Crawley. God only knew why, but if someone didn’t say something soon, Captain Allenby was likely to come to an unfortunate conclusion. “Lieutenant Crawley’s a cousin of the family I used to work for, sir,” Thomas said. 

“Er, yes,” said Lieutenant Crawley. “I’ve been trying to keep that a bit quiet.”

_Why_? “Sir,” Thomas said, attempting to convey with the single word that he could not possibly be expected to come up with an appropriate cover story if he had no idea what it was about the situation that Lieutenant Crawley—or Mr. Matthew—wished to conceal.

“I just, uh, I feel it gives people a more accurate impression, if they know me as a solicitor from Manchester.”

Oh—it was the “future Earl of Grantham” bit that he was making a secret of. Since Thomas hadn’t actually said anything about that part—nor had he, as far as he could remember, ever mentioned exactly where he used to work—Lieutenant Crawley would have been better off keeping his mouth shut. But Thomas could hardly say that, so he settled on, “Sir,” again.

“I feel I’ve missed something,” said Captain Allenby, delicately. “But I’m sure it’s none of my business.”

“It’s not really a secret,” said Lieutenant Crawley. “A couple of years before the war, I became my cousin’s heir, is all. But it wasn’t something I had any expectation of, before it happened, so….” He trailed off, then took a large sip of tea, as if to forestall any further questions.

“Of course,” said Captain Allenby, still sounding a bit puzzled. “I certainly won’t spread it around, if that’s what you want.” 

“Thank you,” said Lieutenant Crawley. He finished the tea and handed the cup back to Thomas. “I suppose I should be off. We’ll need to figure out what to do with Sherwood’s platoon, until we get a replacement.”

He took his leave, and Thomas, Rouse, and Captain Allenby sat down on the waiting-area crates—Fowler had disappeared somewhere. “I shouldn’t pry,” the Captain said, lighting a cigarette, “but I take it this cousin of Crawley’s is Lord Somebody-or-other?”

“Yes, sir.” How did he know _that_? 

“You’ve called me ‘my lord,’ a time or two,” Allenby explained. 

Thomas was very nearly certain that he had done no such thing. “Sir.”

“When you were more-or-less dead on your feet,” he added. “One of those busy times we had. I figured it must have been a habit.”

Thomas supposed he ought to be glad it hadn’t been “your grace.” “Sir,” he said again.

To Thomas’s profound relief, Captain Allenby changed the subject. “I’m not sure if you heard, when I was talking to Sherwood, but you did the right thing, bringing him in first. I’m not sure he’d have lasted, until the second stretcher-party got back.”

“Yes, sir. I did hear, but thank you.”

Rouse added, “I was wondering, did you recognize the collapsed lung, or was it just that you knew t’other bloke was a goner either way?”

“A bit of both,” Thomas said, no longer sure that he preferred this topic to the previous one. “I’d heard of it, and that it can sound like the bloke’s breathing his last, but there’s something to be done if you get him to a doctor quick enough. I were only guessing he might have one, but—like you said, there was nothing to do for the other chest wound, and the leg wound could stand to wait.” 

“Still,” said Captain Allenby, “it’s difficult, making that kind of decision. Even without somebody second-guessing you afterwards.”

Thomas shrugged. It hadn’t been difficult—there’d only been one sensible thing to do, and he’d done it. But he could sort of see, dimly, as if through a curtain, how it _could_ have been difficult. If he’d thought about a telegram-boy knocking on a door, and how somebody on the other side of it, whose world was about to be torn in two. 

He closed his eyes and drew the curtain closed. “He’s young,” he said. “He wanted it to be like a story.”

“Hm?” asked Rouse.

“One of those stories where the arrogant young prince does the right and noble thing at the last minute, so all is forgiven and everyone is saved,” Thomas explained. 

“Oh,” said Allenby. “Yes, I see.” 

Rouse shook his head and said disgustedly, “And they put a kid like that in charge of men’s lives. What do you suppose is the most important thing he’s ever had charge of before—a Sunday school picnic?”

“A Scout hike, probably,” Captain Allenby corrected, his voice gentle. “He was a Boy Scout.”

Thomas lit a cigarette. “He did do a decent job with the tourniquet.” 

Rouse glanced over at him. “I thought that was one of yours. He did it?”

“Learned it in Scouts,” Thomas said. 

“Christ,” said Rouse. “Well, he did do _one_ right thing, then.”

“And _somebody_ was saved,” Captain Allenby added. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On the Organization of the RAMC in forward areas, continued:
> 
> This was done both for logistical reasons—it’s easier not to move sick and wounded people any further than you have to—and because it was thought that men who recuperated within the sound of the guns would have an easier time adjusting to their eventual return to combat. 
> 
> Casualty Clearing Stations fed into Base Hospitals, which were usually located on the coast of the English Channel. Patients could convalesce in a Base Hospital for an extended period, or be sent back to England for treatment or discharge from the Army. 
> 
> On Shell Shock and Private Travers:  
> “Hysterical,” or psychosomatic, symptoms (including blindness, deafness, paralysis, mutism, etc.) were a common manifestation of shell shock. They were also, for obvious reasons, very easy to fake. Distinguishing genuine shell shock from malingering was a significant problem for military doctors—not least because many military authorities believed it was _all_ malingering. 
> 
> While it may seem obvious to us, as 21st-century citizens, that Private Travers’s belief that faking blindness is a viable alternative to returning to the trenches clearly indicates that he is mentally not well (or, as the modern US Army would put it, “failing to adjust”), at the time, if any attention had been drawn to Private Travers’s plight, it would have been treated as a disciplinary issue, not a medical one. 
> 
> In cases of recognized shell shock, placebo treatment of hysterical symptoms was a standard and well-accepted practice (particularly for enlisted men, who were understood as lacking sufficient mental sophistication to benefit from Freudian psychoanalysis, which was more often made available to officers). A particularly distressing variant on this treatment method was the use of _aversive_ placebos, particularly electric shocks to the affected area. (See Lewis R. Yealland, _Hysterical Disorders of Warfare_ , 1918, https://archive.org/details/hystericaldisord00yealuoft/page/n6; full text available through the Internet Archive. As an example of the psychoanalytic approach, see W.H.R. Rivers, “On The Repression of War Experience,” https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_The_Repression_of_War_Experience, full text available through WikiSource.) 
> 
> In this context, Captain Allenby’s treatment of Private Travers can be understood as combining compassion with the best available medical practice of the day. 
> 
> On Lieutenant Sherwood’s pneumothorax:
> 
> I’m not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV. The symptoms and treatment described here are as accurate as I could make them, based on a combination of historical and modern sources, but, for the record, do not attempt to diagnose and treat your or your friends’ lung injuries based on this information! There are loads of other things that present similarly to a pneumothorax—as Thomas says, he was just guessing about his diagnosis, and he only acted on that guess because waiting for the second stretcher-party wasn’t going to affect the survival of either of the other two, so there wasn’t much of a downside if he guessed wrong. You are highly unlikely to ever be in that situation (for one thing, the only reason Cartwright, the chest wound, didn’t have a chance was that the trick to emergency blood transfusions was in the process of being worked out right at that time), so if somebody is having trouble breathing, contact emergency services.
> 
> Needle aspiration is still used today to treat pneumothorax, but it’s a complicated procedure; don’t try it at home. The only reason Captain Allenby is entrusting it to an orderly with next to no formal medical training is that the alternative is for him to go back with Sherwood himself, and leave the entire regiment with no doctor available for any other serious casualty that might occur. Since there’s no way of knowing what the _next_ emergency might be, the risk-benefit analysis comes out in favor of teaching Jessop to do this one procedure—but only because the situation they’re in is already much riskier than anything most of us can expect to face. 
> 
> On Lieutenant Sherwood: Young men of upper-class or upper-middle class background automatically entered the British Army as officers, and after a brief spell of training, were put in charge of a platoon of 50 men. Some rose to the occasion; some did not. Lieutenant Sherwood is probably about 19 years old, and went straight from boarding school to officer's training.


	9. Chapter Seven:  November-December, 1915

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Returning from the Front, Thomas finds that living conditions in the billet have declined.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In addition to the usual swearing, military violence and medical gore, readers sensitive to issues of relationship/familial abuse and gaslighting in the form of half-assed apologies for said abuse may find one aspect of this chapter reminiscent of this dynamic, though that is not exactly what’s happening here. See end note for details, which contain spoilers for the chapter.

_20_ _November, 1915_

_Dear Thomas,_

_I hope you’re well—and that this letter catches up to you, wherever you are! Lady Mary heard from Mr. Matthew that he ran into you at the Front again. She said it sounded as though you were working there now—doing first aid for the men in the trenches, or something like that. Since the last any of us heard, apart from field postcards, was that you were in charge of several wards at your hospital, we are all wondering what happened. I’m sure that what you’re doing at the Front is also an important and responsible job, but I wonder if it’s dangerous._

_Everything here is much the same. William has signed up for the Derby scheme, but promised his father that he won’t go to the war until his group is called. Some men came from the scheme to talk to Mr. Bates as well, but once he showed them his discharge papers from when he was in the Army before, they said that he didn’t need to do anything further. He offered to assist with the canvassing, but they haven’t gotten back to him. His lordship is doing something to do with recruiting, but I’m not sure what it is. Lady Mary says that he is dissatisfied with it, because it mostly involves going to meetings._

_The hospital benefit concert has finally been scheduled, for the Sunday before Christmas. Lady Mary will play the piano and Lady Edith plans to sing. Lady Sybil would like to do a recitation, but she and her ladyship have not been able to agree on a piece yet. Apparently everything Lady Sybil has proposed so far is a little advanced for a village audience. _

_We are working on a Christmas parcel for you, and will send it soon. Please tell me if there is anything in particular you’d like._

_Love,_

_Anna Smith_

Thomas had tried several times to write a reply—both while he was still at the Aid Post and now that he was back—but had never gotten much further than “Dear Anna.” This time, he had managed,

29 _November, 1915_

_Dear Anna,_

_I’m fine, and I’m back at the Dressing Station. I was only up at the Front for a few weeks. One of the doctors here was getting some experience working at a Regimental Aid Post, and they sent me and some others up with him._

While he was thinking about what to say next, a large drop of water splatted onto the paper. With a growl of frustration, he pulled his waterproof groundsheet more firmly over his head. He was on linen duty again, and, craving solitude, had come back to the billet before dinner. It was clearly a mistake; now, the barn was not only wet, but freezing cold. They’d been issued a small woodstove, but they weren’t given enough fuel to light it when he was the only one here—and, in any case, the scant heat it produced went straight out the roof. 

He lit a cigarette, warming his fingers over the flame of the lighter. Well, this was bollocks. There really wasn’t anything for it but to go back to the station. At least he could warm up there.

He thought about throwing away the letter, but it was the farthest he’d gotten yet, so he folded it up, and put it and his pen and ink into his pockets. Maybe the others would leave him alone if he was absorbed in writing a letter.

It wasn’t likely, but stranger things had happened.

When he got to the orderlies’ room, he founded it more than usually crowded—everyone else who had a bit of a break was already there. He squeezed into a spot at a table with some of the others from the billet. “All right,” said Rawlins. “If Barrow can’t stick it, the barn is officially unfit for human life.”

“Unfit for any life,” Thomas said. “I saw the mice packing their bags.” 

“I mean it,” Rawlins said. “We’ve got to do something.”

“Like what?” asked Thomas. “Start a mutiny?”

“We’ll call that Plan B,” said Rawlins. 

“What’s Plan A?” asked Plank.

“What we have to do,” Rawlins said, “is make an official complaint. We say that we understand the billeting situation is difficult, but we’ve been very patient, and with winter coming on, the bloody barn is injurious to our health, and we’re not going to take it lying down anymore.”

Thomas scoffed. “You do that.” It wouldn’t accomplish anything.

“Me?” said Rawlins. “No, no. You’re going to do it.”

“Why me?”

“Because you’re the bloody lance-corporal.”

Fuck. He was, wasn’t he? “I’m not saying the part about not taking it lying down,” he said. “That could be considered mutinous.”

“Fine, fine,” Rawlins conceded. “You can just say we’re fed up.”

“And who am I saying this to?”

“Um….” Rawlins looked around the table. Nobody else knew, either. “The Wardmaster?”

“No,” said Thomas.

“All right, what about that MO who likes you?” Rawlins suggested.

“What’s he going to do about it?” Thomas asked. 

“I don’t know; he’s an officer!”

Thomas sighed. “I’ll ask Corporal Jessop. He’ll probably have some idea.”

“There you go!” said Rawlins. “I knew you’d know what to do.”

“I’m not promising anything,” Thomas warned them.

What he learned from Jessop, when he found him in the NCOs’ room the next day, was not encouraging. “An official complaint? Well, then, it’s the Billeting Sergeant you want.”

“Who’s he?” Thomas hadn’t known they had one. 

It turned out that they _didn’t_ have one, exactly—they shared him with the Transport Corps, and his office was in one of their buildings. “But I wouldn’t expect to get much joy of him,” Corporal Jessop added. “Nobody’s happy with his billet.”

“I know,” Thomas said, with a sigh. “Ours is pretty bad, though.”

“You lot have that barn out Petticoat Lane, don’t you?” Jessop asked. “It looks sturdier than some.”

“It’s the roof that’s the problem—it leaks like a sieve.”

“Can’t you just bunch up in the dry parts?”

“There aren’t any. We could just about stand it in the summer, but we’re all going to get pneumonia before we go on much longer.”

“Well, that’d solve the problem—we could put you all in the Sick ward.” 

Thomas hoped it wouldn’t come to that. “I did have one idea—if we could get our hands on a bell tent, we could put that in the barn. Then we’d have the walls to block the wind, and the canvas to keep the rain off.”

Corporal Jessop scratched his chin. “Let’s go and have a word with the Supply Sergeant. He’s one of our own; we might have more luck with him.”

So they went to the Supply Sergeant. He was shaking his head before Corporal Jessop was halfway through explaining what they wanted. “The only tents we have are the big marquees we use for extra wards. I can’t give you one of those, and in any case, it’s too big for what you have in mind. I should see the Billeting Sergeant if I were you.”

“D’you have any ideas about how to put him in a helpful frame of mind?” Jessop asked.

“Not unless you’ve got a Sweet Polly Oliver in your section,” the Sergeant said. “And she’d have to have pretty loose morals, to boot.”

“I’m fairly sure we’d have noticed by now if one of us was actually female,” Thomas said. He considered making a joke about putting Rawlins in a dress, but rejected the notion, and very firmly did not think about how he’d ever known anyone who’d have leapt at the opportunity. “What about an estaminet girl?” They could pool their money.

The Sergeant shook his head. “He knows them all.”

Jessop sighed. “It looks like your only choice is to appeal to his sense of duty, lad.”

“When that doesn’t work,” said the Sergeant, “I might be able to do you a few extra ground-sheets.”

“Thanks,” Thomas said. That wouldn’t be much help, but he supposed it was better than nothing.

After signing for the linen delivery, Thomas went into the orderlies’ room, got a cup of tea, and tried to work on the letter to Anna some more. He wrote,

_It wasn’t so bad at the Front. We got decent quarters on account of even the General Staff realize it’s a good idea if we’re a bit less filthy than everyone else when we go sticking our fingers in wounds. They don’t want the fighting men making themselves too at home, so they aren’t really encouraged to improve their dugouts much._

Rouse had explained that to him—the idea was that trenches were purely temporary fortifications, and making them comfortable would only make the men less eager to move the line forward. An Aid Post, on the other hand, might become a Dressing Station, or even a Casualty Clearing Station, as the Front moved further away. 

It made a sort of sense, right up until the moment you considered the fact that the lines had barely moved since this time last year. 

He wrote on,

_Now I’m back at the 47 th and doing linen again. It’s quiet work in the indoors, which is welcome because the weather’s gone cold and wet, and our barn is no better._

Rawlins dropped into the seat across from him. “Writing to your girl again? Thought maybe you’d called it off.”

Thomas glanced up at him. “She’s not my girl,” he reminded him. 

“Right,” said Rawlins. “Your friend, who is a girl. What d’you find to say, to a girl that isn’t your girl?”

“Not much,” said Thomas. “That’s why I haven’t written to her in a while.” 

Rawlins lit a cigarette. “So what did old Jessop say?”

“He said we need to talk to the Billeting Sergeant—he’s over in the Transport Corps. But he doesn’t think it’ll do any good, either.”

“It’s got to,” said Rawlins. “We have the worst billet in the entire sector.”

“I bet lots of people think that,” Thomas pointed out.

“Yeah, but _someone’s_ got to be right.”

He had a point there. “It really is shit. I didn’t want to come back, from the Front.”

“What about the shelling?”

“You learn to sleep through it.” A few times, Thomas had woken up to find his blanket covered with a layer of dirt that had sifted down from the ceiling after a particularly nearby strike. But it was a lot easier to shake the dirt off of a blanket than it was to dry one out. 

Rawlins shrugged. “Should I go with you, when you talk to the Billeting Sergeant, do you think? Might help to show that we’re speaking for the whole section.”

Thomas didn’t particularly want to do it on his own—in fact, he’d considered asking Corporal Jessop to go with him, before deciding it would make him look weak. “Couldn’t hurt.”

“When should we go?”

“I can’t today; I’m on standby.” The chances of a convoy coming in were virtually nil, but it would be just his luck if they got one the one time he skived off. “Tomorrow, I suppose.”

“All right. After lunch? Everybody’s in a better mood after lunch; it’s a fact of human nature.”

Thomas wasn’t so sure about that, but he didn’t have any better ideas, so he agreed.

The next afternoon, they set out for the Transport Corps’s area. Rawlins had a number of additional suggestions about what they ought to say, leaning heavily on the theme that they were fed up, and also that they were British subjects wearing His Majesty’s uniform and entitled to decent living conditions.

After he’d run his mouth off for a while, Thomas sighed and said, “Let me do the talking, all right?”

Rawlins agreed, but that didn’t last long. As Thomas explained the problem, the Billeting Sergeant leaned on his counter with a bored expression. “So you don’t fancy your billet,” he said when Thomas finished.

“No, Sergeant.”

“That’s a brand-new one on me.” He called over his shoulder, “Bill, we’ve got a couple of RAMC lads here who don’t like their billet!”

“Oh, dearie me,” said Bill, a large man with corporal’s stripes. “We can’t have that, can we?”

“Tell you what,” said the Sergeant. “Why don’t I ring up the Ritz and book you a half a dozen rooms? You’ll have to double up, but there _is_ a war on.”

This was pretty much what Thomas had expected, and he was getting ready to say Ta, but that might make it difficult to get to their shifts on time, when Rawlins interrupted, “We’re serious. Conditions in our billet are injurious to our health, and we want to make an official complaint.”

“Ooh,” said Bill. “An _official_ complaint! That’s different.”

Thomas gave Rawlins a quelling look. “Yes. Is there a form for that?” He didn’t think that would do any good, either, but it might shut Rawlins up.

“Of course.” The Sergeant reached under his counter and brought out a roll of bog paper. “There you be. Official complaint form number two, best used with tablet number nine.”

Rawlins opened his mouth, and Thomas trod heavily on his foot. “Could we get one of those for every man in the billet?” It didn’t seem likely that the Sergeant would be _that_ committed to the joke, but if he was, they’d at least have something to show for their trouble.

“Just pass it round,” said Bill, guffawing. “You can all sign your names.”

“It’s not funny,” said Rawlins. “We’re asking you to do—”

Thomas spoke over him before he could actually say _do your bloody job. “_ What my mate means is, we understand that it’s no easy job finding places to put everyone, and every billet’s got something wrong wi’ it. We’re not complaining about the mice, or the smell, or that we’re sleeping on flagstones harder than a landlord’s heart, are we?” Was it his imagination, or was the Billeting Sergeant looking at him with ever so slightly less contempt? “And in the warm months, we could just about stand having it rain indoors. But now winter’s setting in….”

He wasn’t entirely sure how he wanted to end that sentence, and Rawlins filled in the gap with, “It’s unfit for human life, is what it is. I doubt you could put horses in there without hearing from the RSPCA.”

With that, any good will that Thomas might have managed to accumulate was washed away. “Private,” said the Billeting Sergeant, finally serious, “There are men at the Front who’d be bloody grateful to live in that barn. Unless you’d like to trade places with one of them, quit your whinging, and if the roof leaks, put a bucket under it.”

“Or a bedpan,” suggested Bill, who apparently hadn’t realized that the lavatory humor portion of the conversation had finished. 

“A _bucket_ ,” said Rawlins. “Why didn’t we think of that? Oh, right—because there’d be no room left for us, after we put down all the buckets we’d need.” 

“Sergeant,” Thomas said. He was going to suggest that the Sergeant visit the billet one day when it was raining. There didn’t seem to be any other way to get across that when he said it leaked like a sieve, he _wasn’t exaggerating_. The water came in through the cracks where the roof-boards met, not at any place in particular. 

But before he could cram in more than that one word edgewise, Rawlins was saying, “Anyway, Barrow’s just come back from the Front, and he says the barn’s worse!”

It was instantly obvious that that had been precisely the wrong thing to say. He gave Thomas a look of absolute disgust. “Really, now? How many of your section have been killed in your billet? How often do you wake up and realize that the rock that’s been digging into your arse all night is a bit of some other sod’s skeleton? How much blood and shit and rotting flesh is there in the mud you get?”

There didn’t seem much point trying to explain that he’d been talking about the Regimental Aid Post, specifically, not the entire Front. “Are you finished?” he asked Rawlins. “Thank you, Sergeant.”

Rawlins let Thomas tow him towards the door, but he fired off a parting shot before going through it: “At least at the Front, they get to rotate back!”

Once they were outside, Thomas demanded, “What did I say about letting me do the talking?”

“He wasn’t taking us seriously!”

“I noticed!” He ducked under the eaves of the next building over and lit a cigarette. “You don’t get a bloke like that to take you seriously by talking down to him.”

“If he’d paid any attention to what you were saying, he’d have realized it wasn’t a bloody joke.”

“And why would he pay any more attention to us than he does to every bugger else who doesn’t like his billet?” Thomas asked. “Because you went to fucking grammar school?” He recognized dimly that it was a low shot—Rawlins never made anything of the fact that he’d had more education than most of them.

“I never said that.”

“You didn’t have to. You sound like a fucking ponce. _Injurious to our health_ ,” he mimicked. “Christ.”

“So do you,” Rawlins said. “You sound like more of a fucking ponce than I ever could.”

“Only when I choose to,” Thomas said, and he said it like a fucking ponce. Belatedly, he realized that what he was doing right now was a lot closer to being an absolute tit than it was to keeping his head down _._ Looking away from Rawlins, he fished his cigarettes back out of his pocket and angled the packet in Rawlins’s direction.

After a moment, Rawlins took one.

Once he’d lit it, Thomas said, “Somebody like that, you’ve got to show him you’re a regular bloke, right?” Rawlins made a sound of vague agreement, and Thomas continued, “He gets enough of the high-and-mighty routine from officers, and he can’t give them any back-chat. We come in, and it’s his turn to kick downwards. You’ve just got to stand there and take it. Once he gets it out of his system, then maybe you have a chance to get somewhere.”

“Oh,” said Rawlins. 

“It probably wouldn’t have worked with him, anyway,” Thomas added. “Time for plan B.”

Rawlins glanced at him. “I wasn’t serious about the mutiny.”

“No,” Thomas agreed, setting out toward the Dressing Station. “But he’s not going to help us out of the goodness of his heart.”

Rawlins considered. “Bribery?”

“Already looked into that,” Thomas answered. “We don’t have anything he wants. So that leaves blackmail.”

Rawlins nodded slowly. “With what?”

“That’s what we have to figure out. His weakness is women. Maybe he’s led a respectable local girl astray.” There were a few of those still around, living in what was left of the village. “Or maybe he has the pox and we tell him it’s his choice whether we turn him in, or treat him off the books. Or….” Thomas couldn’t think of another example. “Anything like that.” 

“How do we find out?”

“Tell everybody to keep their ears open. Try to talk to the Transport blokes—the ambulance drivers, the mechanics, whoever we can run into.”

“Doesn’t seem like there’s much of a chance of running into someone who knows his incriminating secret—whatever it is,” Rawlins pointed out.

“No, but we find out who his mates are, what estaminets he goes to. Then we can keep an eye on him, watch for him to put a foot wrong. Or get his mates drunk and pump them for information. If we don’t turn up anything we can use, we get him drunk and point him at an estaminet girl we know has the pox.”

“I don’t know,” said Rawlins. “Seems a bit…dodgy.”

“Of course it’s a bit dodgy; it’s fucking blackmail. Have you got any better ideas?”

“No,” Rawlins admitted. “Let’s think about it a bit, yeah? Maybe there’s another way.”

“We could murder a dozen other blokes and take their billets,” Thomas suggested.

“….All right, maybe blackmail isn’t so bad.”

They reported their lack of success to the others at dinner. To Thomas’s surprise, nearly all of the others seemed to have expected a different outcome. They spent most of the meal slandering the Billeting Sergeant’s name, finally settling down toward the end to talk about other strategies—most of which seemed to involve Thomas working some kind of magic spell. 

“What if you talk to the Wardmaster about it?” Manning asked. “There’s got to be something he can do.”

“The Wardmaster’s talked to me all of three times,” Thomas said patiently. And that was only if you counted in the NCOs’ mess. “It’s not like we’re mates.”

“That’s three more times than me,” Plank pointed out. 

It was about then that one of the corporals showed up to tell Thomas that the Wardmaster wanted to see him.

“ _See_?” said Manning.

“It’s probably about something else,” Thomas told him, but privately, he did wonder just a bit if the Wardmaster might have heard about their problem somehow, and had some ideas. 

That wasn’t too likely, he decided as he crossed the courtyard to the main building, but perhaps after the Wardmaster had said whatever it was he wanted, there’d be some kind of opening that Thomas could use to bring up the situation with the billet. It wasn’t like he could just pop into the Wardmaster’s office for a chat whenever he wanted, but if he was already there, it might be all right.

So it was with cautious optimism that Thomas presented himself in front of the Wardmaster’s desk. 

He was not, this time, offered a seat, much less a drink. “Do you want to fucking tell me,” the Wardmaster said, “why I’ve got the fucking Billeting Sergeant tearing me a new asshole about you and some other fucking new bloke coming into his fucking house and getting mouthy with him?”

He sounded furious, and Thomas’s first impulse was to simply say _Sergeant_ , with the understanding that the Wardmaster was not, in fact, interested in an explanation. But he’d been wrong about that both of the other times he’d been in this position. Maybe this was the opportunity he’d been looking for. “Yes, Sergeant. We’re in the old barn out on Petticoat Lane, and everyone’s getting a bit fed up with it, so two of us went to ask if anything could be done.”

“And were you fucking insolent to him about it?”

_It wasn’t me, it was the other bloke_ wasn’t something you could say, so Thomas said, “Not intentionally.”

“I don’t give a fuck about your fucking intentions. You want to know what I give a fuck about?”

_Fuck_. He really was furious this time. For once in his life, Thomas _should_ have gone with his first impulse. Bloody typical. He braced up and said, “Sergeant.”

“That’s right,” said the Wardmaster. “You are getting a fucking bollocking—well spotted.”

Thomas did not say that it would be considerably easier to tell if the Wardmaster didn’t shout and swear regardless of whether you were getting a bollocking or not. 

“What I give a fuck about is that I can’t go to a fucking piss-up without hearing about how one of you fuck-ups fucked up.” He slammed his hand down on the desk with enough force to make Thomas, and his tin mug full of pencils, jump. “Don’t do this shit,” he said wearily.

“Yes, Sergeant.” He hadn’t actually _done_ anything—but like he’d told Rawlins, he still had to stand there and take it. Somehow, it stung more than usual this time, though.

“You—god damn it. You are supposed to fucking know better.”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“Why the fuck did you get involved, then?”

Did he actually want an answer this time? Probably not. “Sergeant.”

The Wardmaster stared at him for a moment. “Fine. Go. Private.”

_Fuck_. Thomas about-faced and left. 

When he was halfway out the door, the Wardmaster yelled after him, “And if you’re playing that game, it’s Master Sergeant, you little pissant!” 

Thomas closed the door quietly behind him, then slunk out of the station, taking a circuitous route designed to make it as unlikely as possible that he’d run into anyone who might try to talk to him. 

Outside, he kicked an innocent pebble so hard he hurt his foot. It was stupid to be bothered, really. It wasn’t the first bollocking he’d had for something that hadn’t been his fault, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. 

And he’d known all along the others were wrong when they said the Wardmaster liked him. Maybe they’d believe him now.

He took the long way back to the barn, and stopped to smoke two cigarettes, but he was still steaming when he got there. It didn’t help at all when, as soon as he got in the door, everyone started clamoring for him to tell them what the Wardmaster had said.

Thomas glared around the interior of the barn, wondering how he could sum up what had just happened. Finally, he snarled, “Fuck off,” and stormed back outside.

He’d barely sat down on the big piece of rubble and lit a cigarette when, of-fucking-course, Rawlins showed up. “I guess it didn’t go well,” he said timidly.

“Well fucking spotted.”

Rawlins gestured for him to move over on the rubble. 

Thomas didn’t. “Do you understand that I come out here to get away from you?”

Rawlins laughed nervously. “Uh….”

“Because it really defeats the fucking purpose when you follow me out here. I’m just saying.”

“Fine,” said Rawlins. “You know what? Fuck you too.”

He started back for the barn, thank Christ. “At least now nobody can think I’m responsible for you sods,” Thomas called after him.

Rawlins’s retreating form hesitated, then reversed course. “Wait, what?”

“I’m not a fucking lance-corporal anymore.” He didn’t know why he mentioned it. It wasn’t like he cared. It wasn’t even a real rank.

“Fuck,” said Rawlins. “Why?” He hesitated. “You didn’t tell the Wardmaster to fuck off, did you?”

“How stupid do you think I am? Apparently, the fucking Billeting Sergeant interrupted his evening to tell him about the two mouthy idiots he saw today, and, surprise surprise, he didn’t like it!”

“Why didn’t he yell at me, too?” Rawlins wondered.

“Maybe because I wasn’t fucking stupid enough to mention your name.”

Rawlins shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. “All right. Look, when we go in tomorrow, I’ll ask to see him, and I’ll tell him it was my fault.”

“Don’t do me any favors.”

“What do you want me to do, then?”

“I don’t fucking care what you do,” Thomas said. 

Rawlins did some more shifting from foot to foot. “All right. I’ll just go back in, then.”

“Best idea you’ve had all day.”

Thomas stayed outside until he couldn’t stand the cold anymore—not that going inside was actually much of an improvement. By the time he got there, everyone else had gone to bed. Since he’d come back from the Front, they’d taken to sleeping in a sort of semi-circular huddle around the stove, with everyone’s blankets and groundsheets overlapping to create a sort of cocoon. 

Rawlins and Perkins had left a space in Thomas’s usual place between them. He briefly considered the merits of snatching back his own blankets and sleeping somewhere else. The prospect was tempting, but it would surely wake them up—maybe wake everybody up—and then they might try to talk to him. So he took off his boots and squeezed into his spot, and was a little bit surprised when Rawlins snugged up against his back like always.

The next morning, everyone was noticeably more subdued than usual, barely even complaining about the rain and talking in low voices with occasional wary glances in Thomas’s direction. The bloke whose turn it was to heat up shaving water practically _scuttled_ away after giving Thomas his. 

It reminded Thomas of nothing so much as those times growing up when Dad would go on a tear about something—it didn’t happen often, but even the other kids knew to keep out of his way at those times, if they didn’t want their heads bitten off for breathing too loud. 

It turned out that being the one everyone tiptoed around wasn’t any more fun than doing the tiptoeing. He felt that he ought to do something—fix it, somehow—but he didn’t have any idea how. All he could remember Dad ever doing was sometimes saying, in a tone of brittle good humor, how nice it was to have a bit of peace and quiet for a change. 

He wasn’t going to do that.

Thomas was just finishing wrapping his puttees when a familiar voice boomed, “What a fucking shithole.”

Everybody dropped what they were doing and braced up. 

“As you were,” the Wardmaster said, walking a little further into the barn and looking around with an incredulous expression. “How long have you poor sods been living in this….” He hesitated as if words failed him, before settling on “thing?”

It was Rawlins who answered. “Some of us since February, Sergeant.”

“Christ.” He looked up at the ceiling, which was currently admitting both rain and daylight, then wandered outside. 

Thomas finished getting dressed, aware that everyone was looking at him and trying to pretend they weren’t. If anyone had actually dared to suggest that he go and find out what the Wardmaster was doing here, he’d have refused. But nobody said it, and once he’d buttoned up his greatcoat and very carefully put on his cap, he wordlessly went outside.

The Wardmaster was smoking a cigarette and looking up at the barn roof. With a sidelong glance at Thomas, he said, “I’m no’ a fucking architect, son, but I think that’s meant to have some fucking shingles on it.”

Thomas looked at the roof. He’d never thought about the reason it was so deficient at the most important job of a roof, but now that the Wardmaster mentioned it, most roofs in his experience did have more to them than just boards. “Yes, Master-Sergeant. I think so too.”

The Wardmaster sighed. “You don’t actually have to call me that.”

“Yes, Sergeant,” Thomas essayed.

“Right.” He took out his cigarettes, lit a new one from the end of the old, and then angled the packet in Thomas’s direction.

They were a strange French kind that Thomas didn’t like, but having been on the other side of that gesture just yesterday, he figured he’d better take one. “Thanks,” he said, and lit it. 

He figured that was all he was going to get—and didn’t expect more—but the Wardmaster, intently watching the roof as though it were about to do something interesting, cleared his throat and said, “Once I thought on it a bit, I realized it had to be pretty fucking bad for you to be making a fuss about it.”

Thomas nodded. 

“Did you really tell Jenkins it was worse than the fucking Front?”

On the tentative assumption that he was not, at the moment, getting a bollocking, Thomas said, “I didn’t say it to him.” If Jenkins was the Billeting Sergeant, which he supposed he must be. “And I was talking about our dugouts at the Regimental Aid Post.”

The Wardmaster snorted. “Well, that’s a statement of fucking fact.”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“I won’t ask which of those fucking idiots you took with you,” the Wardmaster went on, “but I will say, as a fucking lance-corporal, you’re meant to _stop_ your mates from doing stupid fucking shit—not hold their coats while they do it.”

He had a point—clearly, where Thomas had gone wrong was taking Rawlins with him to see the Billeting Sergeant. The Sergeant probably wouldn’t have been any more helpful, but Thomas was fairly sure he could have avoided doing anything he would have had to complain to the Wardmaster about. “Yes, Sergeant.” 

“I’m no’ sayin’ it’s always fucking easy, mind. You’ll get the hang of it.”

Did that mean he _was_ still a lance-corporal? It seemed an important thing to be sure about, and short of waiting until the next duty-roster came out, which wouldn’t be for almost two weeks, he could only think of one way to find out. “Am I a lance-corporal, then?”

“Yeah,” said the Wardmaster, flicking ash from his cigarette. “Your bollocking was meant to be the one I _didn’t_ have to fill out any fucking forms about.” He studied the roof some more. “I said about the piss-up, yeah?”

“You did.” So the Wardmaster had come home the worse for drink, and looking for someone to tear a strip off of? That was familiar enough, but he couldn’t think of a time anybody’d ever owned up to it. 

“Yeah. So, I’ll see what the fuck I can do about—” He gestured at the barn. “This.”

“Thank you, Sergeant.”

“Right,” he said. “I’ll bugger off, then, and let you lads get on with it.”

Thomas finished the French cigarette and then smoked one of his own, to take the taste of the first one out of his mouth. It was about time for them to be heading for the station, but everybody was still in the barn. Belatedly, he realized they were probably hiding from the Wardmaster.

And possibly him, a little.

Sighing, he went back in. Everybody was standing clustered around the stove, fully dressed and shaven, their blankets and packs stowed under the groundsheets. They all looked up at the sound of the door opening. “Right, uh, Wardmaster’s gone,” Thomas said. “He’s gonna see what he can do about…all this.”

There was a murmur of approval. 

“Better get on,” he added. “Before they give away our breakfast.”

They all set out. On days that they left at the same time, Rawlins usually walked beside Thomas, chattering about this and that. 

He didn’t, today. Nor did he talk to him at breakfast, or come and bother him while he was trying to do the linen chitty. 

Not that Thomas had ever wanted him to do any of those things. It wasn’t like they were mates or anything.

Still, he was a little relieved when, that afternoon, he was in the courtyard smoking and waiting for the linen van and someone came out of one of the ward huts, heading straight for him. His cap was pulled low, and he had the collar of his greatcoat up, but it had to be Rawlins. 

He’d offer him a cigarette, yeah? It had worked before, and the Wardmaster had done it. 

He already had the pack out when the bloke got there—and it was Jessop. “All right, lad?” he said, taking out his own cigarettes and leaning up against a patch of wall not far from the one Thomas was using.

“Yeah,” he said. “Van’s late.” 

“Typical.” They smoked in silence for a bit. “Wardmaster talked to you?”

He nodded.

“Good,” said Jessop. He blew out a stream of smoke and watched it for a moment. “He were cheesed off about that right mess in t’pharmacy, tha’ knows.”

Thomas had absolutely no idea what had happened in the pharmacy, because no one had talked to him all day, but he said, “I figured.” 

“That, and he and Sergeant Jenkins have never seen things the same way,” Jessop added. “So you can imagine how happy Jenkins was to get the chance of telling him one of his own lads had stepped in the shit.”

“I shouldn’t have taken Rawlins,” Thomas admitted. “He was too worked up about the whole thing.”

“If it’s as bad as all that, he were right to be worked up,” Jessop said. “But yeah, that’s not the path you want to take with somebody like Jenkins. Bit of a bully.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Mind, if I’d known how much bad blood there was between him and Tully, I’d not have told you to go over there.” 

Thomas nodded. “I understand. We had to try _something_.”

“Mm.” Jessop took another drag from his cigarette. “Tully’s going to talk to a bloke he knows in the Engineering Corps. One of our sort, you know. Get him to do some repairs, off the books like.”

Thomas hadn’t known that was an option. “Sounds like a good idea.” Idly, he wondered what sort Jessop meant. Working class, maybe. Or from Yorkshire. He didn’t think the Wardmaster was, but the way he sounded, he could come from anywhere. “I’m sure all the lads’ll appreciate it.”

The linen van turned into the courtyard, and Jessop clapped Thomas on the shoulder. “Good lad. I’ll let you get on with it.”

After the wards came to pick up their linen, and Rawlins sent _somebody else_ , Thomas began to consider that if he wanted things to go back to normal, he might have to make a bit of an effort. Thinking back to that morning—and the fact that, if all the Wardmaster had wanted was to see the barn, he wouldn’t have had to do it at the crack of dawn the morning after a piss up—he fixed a cup of tea and took it to the ward where Rawlins was working.

He found him in the sink room, up to his elbows in dirty dishes. “Er—brought you this,” he said. “Didn’t see you at lunch.”

“I was busy,” Rawlins said. Then, “Thanks.” He dried off his hands and took the tea. 

Right, what had the Wardmaster done next? “You know I only said that shite last night ‘cause I was hacked off about the other thing, right?”

“Yeah,” said Rawlins. “Sure, I know. I’ve just been busy, like I said.”

“Just makin’ sure.” Thomas picked up a towel and started drying some of the dishes. “Jessop reckons the Billeting Sergeant was looking for something to complain about, ‘cause he and the Wardmaster don’t get on.”

“Yeah?” Rawlins looked interested. “Well, that makes sense. Billeting Sergeant’s an arse.”

“Yeah,” Thomas agreed. “And it turns out he didn’t mean it about me not being lance-corporal anymore.”

“Oh—good!” He gave Thomas a sidelong look. “Long as you don’t mind being responsible for us.”

Thomas supposed he had that coming. “Reckon I can live with it.”

They washed dishes for a few moments. “Did you hear what’s been going on in pharmacy stores?”

“No,” said Thomas. “What happened?”

“Turns out some of the chaps down there have been selling medicine on the black market. Mostly morphine.”

“Fuck,” said Thomas. “No wonder the Wardmaster was in a bit of a strop.”

“Oh,” Rawlins said. “Right—guess you caught the edges of it, yeah?”

“Yeah. I reckon it was damn decent of him to come and look in on us earlier.”

Rawlins nodded. “Scared the piss out of me, though.”

“Too right,” said Thomas. 

Rawlins must have told the others that Thomas had finished being a short-tempered sod, because by dinner time, they were all speaking to him again. Mostly pointless speculation about what the Wardmaster was going to do about the billet, and what was going to happen to the poor sods from Pharmacy, but it was less irritating the usual. 

And after dinner, he finally finished writing his letter to Anna.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Note: The Wardmaster, drunk and angry about something else, berates Thomas for something that’s not really his fault. Thomas finds this reminiscent of his childhood experiences with his social father, but he doesn’t dwell on this comparison because he’s repressing his emotions about everything. The Wardmaster later offers an explanation for his behavior and offers help with a related matter; Thomas is satisfied with this. Important aspects of context are that verbal abuse was an accepted management technique in the setting, and that NCOs were not expected to apologize or explain themselves to subordinates no matter how wrong they were. (Also they’re Edwardian British men and don’t talk about their feelings.) Therefore, it’s a big deal that the Wardmaster realizes he was in the wrong and tries to make up for it, even though the content of the apology is a little thin, particularly in the area of actually acknowledging what he did wrong.
> 
> If your 21st-century parent or partner acts like this, you deserve better. 
> 
> Historical Notes:   
> The Derby scheme, which Anna mentions William has signed up for, was a sort of precursor to conscription—men signed a pledge that they would join the Army if needed, and were assigned to a group based on age and civilian occupation. Each occupation was ranked by how “essential” it was, either to the war effort or to society in general. (For instance, coal miners were some of the most essential workers, because coal was needed to operate ships, to run factory equipment, and to keep people from freezing to death.) The idea was that young men in low-priority occupations would be called up first, older men in essential occupations last. The scheme was abandoned, in part due to its complexity, in favor of simple age-based conscription, with exemptions for the most essential workers. 
> 
> Tablet number 9 was a laxative.


	10. Chapter 8: December, 1915

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas and the gang relocate.

_29 November, 1915_

_Dear Anna,_

_I’m fine, and I’m back at the Dressing Station. I was only up at the Front for a few weeks. One of the doctors here was getting some experience working at a Regimental Aid Post, and they sent me and some others up with him._

_It wasn’t so bad at the Front. We got decent quarters on account of even the General Staff realize it’s a good idea if we’re a bit less filthy than everyone else when we go sticking our fingers in wounds. They don’t want the fighting men making themselves too at home, so they aren’t really encouraged to improve their dugouts much._

_Now I’m back at the 47 th and doing linen again. It’s quiet work in the indoors, which is welcome because the weather’s gone cold and wet, and our barn is no better._

_2 December, 1915_

_Sorry, got busy and had to put this aside. Since I wrote that last bit, the Wardmaster came out and had a look at our billet, and he’s going to see what he can do about it. So that’s cheered us all up a bit._

_If it’s not impertinent for me to say, Mr. Matthew did rather well up at the Front, too. (If it is impertinent for me to say, don’t tell anyone I said it!) A patrol in No Man’s Land came a cropper, and the young officer who was leading it wasn’t taking it well—I expect it was the first time he’d seen someone killed, let alone been responsible for it. Our medical officer had his hands full with the wounded, so he sent me to find another officer to help keep the first one calm. (The young gentleman was wounded too, and I reckon could have made himself worse carrying on, in addition to getting in everybody’s way.) The officer I found was Lt. Crawley, and he stayed and sat with the lad until we had everybody ready to send back to the dressing station. He didn’t turn a hair about all the messy medical things going on—although I suppose that’ s natural enough given his father was a doctor—and I expect he had other things he could have been doing, so it was very decent of him to help, especially since the other officer was technically on his same level (but a lot less experienced!) and not somebody he was officially responsible for._

_With any luck, I’ll manage to be a more reliable correspondent as we get settled in for winter. The blokes who were here last winter say we can expect fewer wounds and more illnesses, which is not necessarily any less work for us, but the hours are a bit more regular. The men get a chance to report sick once a day—if they miss it they’ve got to wait for the next one, unless they’re at death’s door—so we have one busy time each day that we can plan for._

_Thomas_

“I thought his lordship might like to hear that, “Anna said. “The bit about Mr. Matthew, I mean.”

Mr. Bates nodded, handing the letter back to her. “I expect he would. I’ll tell him. Bit surprising, Thomas noticing something like that.”

Anna had to agree—complimenting other people was not one of Thomas’s strong suits. “I suppose the war’s changing him.”

“It does that,” Mr. Bates said. “If I’d had to guess, I’d have thought he’d be one of the ones it would change for the worse, but I’m glad I was mistaken.”

Anna hesitated. “Do you suppose he’s telling the truth, about it not being so bad at the Front?”

Mr. Bates gave her a soft, sorrowful look.

“I didn’t really think so, either,” Anna agreed.

#

“Barrow.”

Thomas looked up from the linen chitty. It was the same corporal who’d summoned him to the Wardmaster the week before. “Yes?”

“Wardmaster wants you.”

Great. He hoped it was about the billet—the day after the Wardmaster’s surprise inspection, they’d been given a second issue of blankets and groundsheets, plus a large piece of waterproofed cloth that they hung as a canopy over the stove. It was a bit of an improvement, but everyone was wondering if that was all they were getting.

On the other hand, he could very well be getting another bollocking for something somebody else had done. He couldn’t think of anything, at the moment, but what difference did that make?

When he got to the office, the Wardmaster waved him into a chair, which seemed a good sign. “How are things at the fucking barn?”

That sounded friendly enough, but Thomas was wary. If anything had happened that the Wardmaster would want to talk about, he didn’t know what it was—but perhaps he was supposed to. “All right, Sergeant,” he said cautiously. “The extra blankets and stuff are a help.”

“Good. My mate in the Royal Engineers went out and had a look. He says there’s no point trying to fix it—the whole fucking roof’s got to be replaced.”

“I see,” said Thomas.

“Boards are fucking rotten, or something. He reckons some bugger nicked the slates off it to fix their own roof, and we’re lucky what’s left didn’t fall down on your fucking heads.” 

Wasn’t _that_ a pleasant thought to go to sleep to? “I see,” he repeated.

“He’ll do the job, but he ain’t gonna get to it any time soon. First he’s got to get the fucking stuff together—I’ve got an idea or two about that—and then he’s got to find a day it’s not fucking raining, _and_ he can spare a crew for an off-the-books job.”

Unable to think of anything to say other than “I see,” Thomas nodded. He supposed they ought to be grateful there was some end in sight to their billet troubles, but he wasn’t precisely looking forward to explaining to the rest of them that they’d be putting up with it for a while longer—and that it might not be a bad idea to set a watch for imminent roof collapse. 

“So here’s what I came up with—it’s not exactly fucking ideal, but it’s all we’ve got. The lot of you are seconded to CCS 14 for the winter.”

That didn’t sound so bad to Thomas—a CCS was a Casualty Clearing Station; they were further back from the fighting than Dressing Stations. 

“They’re taking on more convalescent cases, while the sector’s quiet, so they asked HQ for some extra men. I’ve got some men I’ve nowhere to fucking put, so.” He made a “that’s that” sort of gesture. 

“Yes, Sergeant,” Thomas said. He hesitated. “What’s the catch?”

“The fucking catch is twofold. One is that their CMO is more of an officer than a doctor—he does more fucking parades and inspections a month than ours has done all year, and any time he feels like you aren’t busy enough, he has you out doing drill. You’ll be all right, but the rest of that lot are going to need some sharpening up. Second, at a CCS you’ve got fucking nurses to deal with. You can expect that the Matron will not be such a kindly and pleasant individual as your old pal the Wardmaster—I don’t know her, but a woman’s got to be a fucking bitch to rise that high. Don’t give her any shit, and you should be all right—make sure those other sods know it. And you’ll have to watch your fucking language.”

Thomas did his best to keep a straight face as he said, “Yes, Sergeant.”

“Yeah. There’s a fucking reason I’m working this close to the lines. And while we’re on the subject of fucking nurses, make sure they know, there is no fucking the nurses. It won’t be a problem with the senior nurses, but they’ve got some of those V.A.D. girls there. All of ‘em are young, and most of ‘em are so fucking gently reared they’ve never had to say ‘no’ before. You were a fucking footman—you know the type, yeah?”

“I do,” Thomas agreed. 

“So they’ve been told not to fucking fraternize, but they might not know what the fuck it is they’re not supposed to do. Your lads are not to take advantage of their fucking ignorance.”

Huh. Guardian of feminine virtue, again. “I understand, Sergeant.” Maybe it was a good thing after all that they’d been a little afraid of him after he’d lost his temper, if it was now his job to keep them from doing what came naturally when faced with women they weren’t paying for. 

“Good. Here.” He reached into a drawer and slapped something down on the desk.

It was a corporal’s stripes and papers. “Sergeant?”

“I wasn’t planning to do this just yet, but if I’m sending a section, I need to send a fucking corporal, and I’m already down two,” he explained.

Right, the corporal from pharmacy had been demoted, and they still hadn’t gotten a replacement for Diggs. “Yes, Sergeant.”

“The fucking _plan_ was for you to do a rotation as my clerk, then one at the collecting post—get you some practice running a squad on your own, before you have a whole section to deal with—and then promote you in time for when we get new meat in the spring, but no fucking plan survives the first engagement with the fucking enemy, yeah?”

“Yes, Sergeant,” Thomas said, a little faintly. Abruptly, the events of his last few rotations rearranged themselves into a new pattern. First they’d put him in charge of the linen room. Then they’d put him in charge of D block. Then they’d sent him to the Front and put him in charge of stretcher-parties.

He’d known all along that they were sending Captain Allenby to get some experience at the Aid Post to further his development as an officer. 

It hadn’t occurred to him that they were sending him for essentially the same reason. 

And Corporal Jessop, as he’d been told, was sent along as schoolmaster—but not just for Captain Allenby. 

It would have been nice if someone had told him what was actually going on, but he was probably a hell of a lot more prepared than poor, pathetic Lieutenant Sherwood had been. 

“All right there, son?” asked the Wardmaster. 

“Yes, Sergeant,” said Thomas, automatically. 

“You’ll do all right,” he said. “And those other things we had planned, we’ll do them after you get back, if you fucking need ‘em.”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“You go in three days. Drill your section a bit, get ‘em to tidy up their uniforms, and ask me or Jessop any questions you have—all right?”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“You want a drink?”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

The Wardmaster laughed. “Good lad. All right, let’s have a fucking drink.” He headed over to the armchairs by the fire, saying, “I don’t know if the sun’s over the yardarm yet—but we’re not in the fucking Navy, so we don’t care.”

They sat down, and the Wardmaster poured them each a healthy measure of Armagnac. “Cheers.”

“Cheers,” Thomas echoed, taking a small sip of his drink—he still had the linen chitty to finish.

The Wardmaster knocked back half of his. “This stuff grows on you,” he said. “Know why I started drinking it?”

Thomas shook his head.

“Some sod at GHQ decided only officers are allowed to buy fucking whiskey in the combat zone. God knows why, and most buggers just buy it anyway—‘s’not like the froggies give a fuck what GHQ has to say about it—but I figure, they decide they want an excuse to come after me, they’ll have to find a better one than that.”

“Oh,” said Thomas. 

“Always a good idea to drink the local hooch, anyway—‘scheaper. And this is a damn sight better than the grog we had in South Africa. Fermented milk and God-knows-what. The natives say their ancestors invented the stuff after they saw elephants eat rotten fruit and get pissed off of it—and I believe it.”

Thomas thought of Bates, who had come back from South Africa with a drinking problem, and wondered if the elephant liquor had anything to do with it. He took another sip of his drink, and when it didn’t seem that the Wardmaster had anything else to say, said, “The gentleman I used to work for fought in South Africa. And his valet.”

“Yeah? What regiment?”

“Grenadier Guards.” He knew because he’d had to polish some bits and bobs that had the regimental crest on them. 

The Wardmaster whistled. “Fuck me blind. He must be a fucking nob with knobs on.”

“Earl of Grantham,” Thomas said. 

“Figured you were some kind of hot shit as a footman,” the Wardmaster said. “We had you pegged for some posh bugger, to start.”

“That happens sometimes,” Thomas said. 

“I bet.” The Wardmaster knocked back the rest of his drink. “Better finish that and get back to fucking work, yeah? Come see me, uh…tomorrow, the hour before dinner, and we’ll talk some more, yeah?”

“Yes, Sergeant,” Thomas said, and finished his drink. “Thank you.”

He nodded. “Until then, you figure out what you want to ask me, and tell your lads what’s going on. You’re leaving first thing Friday morning, and you’re going on the march, so pack your kits and plan your piss-ups accordingly.”

Oh, fuck, he was going to have to _tell_ them he was their corporal now. “Yes, Sergeant.”

But first, he had to finish the linen chitty. He’d done it enough times now that it didn’t require much conscious thought, so while he added up the columns, he thought over how much he had to do, and how little time he had to do it. Just the rest of today, Wednesday, and Thursday—and they all had their regular work to do, so everything extra—packing up their kits, smartening up their uniforms, _drill_ —would have to be fitted in to the mornings and evenings.

Dinner would be the first chance he had to talk to everybody at once, so he’d have to explain things then. He could tell them to check their kits tonight, and then inspect their uniforms tomorrow before they reported for duty. That would give them enough time to fix anything that needed it. 

He’d have liked to get started on drill tomorrow, too, but he wasn’t sure how to start. Apart from lining up for parades—and that only a handful of times—he hadn’t so much as _thought_ about drill since leaving England. And he’d never really understood how “form fours” worked—it seemed like a magic trick, the way you started out in two rows and, without anybody taking more than two steps, ended up in four columns. He’d have to find a drill manual somewhere, _and_ make time to read it.

So he’d manage that tomorrow, somehow—if all else failed, he could ask the Wardmaster for a manual—and then drill Thursday morning. Maybe tomorrow night, too, if there wasn’t too much work to be done on kits and uniforms. And they could get in some more practice on the march there.

All right, so there was just about enough time for everything, if they didn’t fuck around. 

Those thoughts took him through filling out the rest of the chitty, and then it was time to go outside to smoke a cigarette and wait for the linen van. 

Rawlins turned up, as he sometimes did. Thomas half-listened as he chattered about what was happening on his ward—nothing unusual—and wondered whether he ought to tell Rawlins his news. Might it be best to tell everyone at once? He didn’t want to seem like he was playing favorites.

On the other hand, if he didn’t say anything, Rawlins was going to wonder why he hadn’t. It didn’t seem a good idea to start out as corporal with another quarrel. 

He made up his mind when Rawlins said, “Any idea what you’re doing next rotation?”

There; if anyone wanted to know why he’d told Rawlins first, he could say _because he asked_. “Uh—yeah, actually. Wardmaster called me in a bit ago.”

Rawlins looked over at him, his expression worried. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. We’re all being seconded to the 14th CCS for the winter.”

“Fuck me,” said Rawlins. “You mean, all of us from the barn?”

Thomas nodded. “Apparently it’s not going to be fixed quickly, and they need some extra men, so….” He shrugged. 

“Well,” Rawlins said slowly, “that might be all right. We won’t have to do carrying-parties up to our arses in snow.”

“True.” Thomas took a drag from his cigarette. “There’s another thing.”

“What?”

Thomas took out his pay-book, where he’d put his stripes for safekeeping, until he had a chance to sew them on. Angling it toward Rawlins, he opened the cover and showed them to him.

“ _Fuck_ ,” said Rawlins. “Those are yours?”

“No, I nicked ‘em off his desk. What do you think?”

Rawlins shook his head. “Well, it’s about fucking time—how long have you been a lance-corporal?”

“Not that long,” said Thomas. He wondered whether to admit that the Wardmaster had told him he was promoting him ahead of schedule. Probably not—it wasn’t the sort of information that would inspire confidence. “I guess he needed a corporal to send with the section.”

“You’ll be brilliant,” Rawlins said. “We should go out and celebrate.”

“We don’t have a lot of time,” Thomas said. “We go Friday morning. Figured I’d tell everyone at dinner tonight.”

“All right, then we go out tomorrow night,” Rawlins said. 

“….Maybe,” said Thomas. “We have a lot to do.”

“Like what?”

“Like pack our kits and make sure we have everything we need, and go over our uniforms—the Wardmaster says the CMO there is a real hardass.” The linen van was pulling into the courtyard. “Fuck.” Thomas tossed away his cigarette. “I’ll explain at dinner—if you see any of the others, make sure they know I need to talk to everybody, all right?”

Rawlins nodded. “All right. I better get back, too—congratulations!”

Thomas was back in the NCOs’ room, after the linen distribution, when Jessop came in. “There you are, lad. Tully just told me.”

“Did he?” It felt a bit strange, that he’d known about this development before Jessop did. 

“It’s a little quicker than we planned, but you’ll be all right,” he said. “It’s a shame I won’t be right on hand if you need a bit of advice, but you just write me if you need anything.”

“I will. Thanks. Say, do you know where I can get a drill manual?”

“Drill manual? What do you want that for?”

“Wardmaster says the CMO at the new place likes drilling. Figured I better brush up.”

“Oh, aye, that’s no’ a bad idea. Let me think…there must be one lying around somewhere.” He looked around the room as though expecting one to jump up and start dancing about. “Purbright, have you got a drill manual?” he asked one of the sergeants.

“What for?”

“Barrow needs one.”

Purbright rummaged through a drawer. “Well, I suppose he can look at mine, but he can’t have it.”

He held it out, and Thomas went over and got it. “Thanks.”

“Put it back on my desk as soon as you’re done with it.”

Thomas spent what was left of the afternoon reviewing the drill manual—and, with the aid of a dozen paperclips, working out the trick behind “form fours.” Once he could get his paperclips to do it correctly without looking at the book, he experimented with all the ways they could get it wrong, and how to fix them without starting over. Along the way, he also discovered the positions in the section where he could put his least reliable paperclips, where the only thing they’d have to do was “face right.” 

The paperclip named Plank might have trouble with even that much, but it would have to do.

After that, he had only enough time left to review some of the most basic commands—“attention,” “stand easy,” and the like. He figured those were the most likely to come up, but if they had to do anything really difficult, they were fucked. Countermarching, for instance—he’d forgotten that _existed_ , and it was an even bigger mystery than “form fours.” 

By the time he’d returned the book to Purbright’s desk and headed over to the mess, everyone else was already there. “Well?” said Manning, when he sat down.

“What?” asked Thomas, helping himself to stew.

“Rawlins says you have some big announcement,” Perkins said.

Thomas realized that he had been sort of hoping that Rawlins would have already let the cat out of the bag. “Yeah,” he said. “I do.”

He must have sounded grimmer about it than he meant to, because everyone exchanged nervous looks, and Collins asked, hesitantly, “Are they sending us to the Front?”

“Fuck no. CCS 14,” Thomas said. “They’re sending us to CCS 14.”

“Oh,” said Collins. “That’s all right, then.”

There were a few minutes of cross-talk about CCS 14 and why they were being sent there. Thomas took the opportunity to eat, while everyone else was talking, and when it had died down a little, said, “Two reasons. One, CCS 14 asked for extra men, and two, it’s going to be a while before the Wardmaster can get our barn fixed up.”

“Why do they need extra men, anyway?” Rawlins asked.

“He didn’t say.”

“And it’s all of us this time?” Manning asked. “You’re sure it’s not just you again?”

“Yeah,” said Thomas. “It’s all of us.” He hesitated. “And I’m our corporal now.” He shoved a forkful of stew into his mouth, to give himself time to think before answering any follow-up questions, but he needn’t have bothered—everyone started talking at once, and if any of them said anything of substance, Thomas didn’t hear it. 

“Fuck.”

“About time.”

“—not going to let us get away with anything, is he?”

“Who else would it be?”

“Our Magnificent Bastard—”

Thomas was waiting for them all to pipe down so that he could explain the plan for the next few days, but before he could, Rawlins said, “So we have to go out and celebrate, yeah?”

There was general agreement with this plan, and discussion of which estaminet they should repair to, and whether the men on ward duty could foist their evening chores off on somebody else. 

He took advantage of the first slight pause to say, “If you want, but we have a lot to do. The Wardmaster says that the CMO at the new place is a real military type. We have to get our uniforms into shape, and brush up on drill. We leave Friday morning, so there isn’t a lot of time. Tonight, I want to work on going over our kits and uniforms, to start with.”

This pronouncement did not have quite the effect that Thomas was hoping for. Instead of asking any intelligent questions about what they needed to do with their kits, or what they were going to do about drill, everyone started talking about where they could go _tomorrow_ night, and the effect that this change of plans might have on the ability of the men on wards to get away early. 

“Lily’s, definitely,” said Manning. “I’m finally getting somewhere with that girl with the black hair—it’ll break her heart if she doesn’t know where I’ve gone.”

“There’ll be girls where we’re going,” Rawlins pointed out. “Lots of them, probably—it’s to the rear.”

“Wait,” said Perkins. “It’s a CCS—are there _nurses_?”

“Yes,” said Thomas. “And the Wardmaster had a bit to say about that, too.”

 _Now_ they were all ears. 

“First of all,” Thomas said, “he says we’ve got to clean up our fucking language.” That got the expected laugh. “Second, there is no fucking the fucking nurses. They might be doing the same kind of work we are, but they’re not our sort—they’re young ladies. It’s the officers who are their own kind. Not us. You call them Nurse Smith or Sister Jones, don’t talk to ‘em about anything except your duties, and pretend like their uniforms are built-in.” He looked around the group. “Whose mum had a china shepherdess?”

Several people admitted that their mums had such an article. “Mine’s was a milkmaid,” said Plank.

“Same thing,” Thomas said. “You ever try and look up her skirt?”

“You can’t,” said Plank. “It’s all one piece.”

“Exactly,” said Thomas. “You look at them nurses, you think _china shepherdess._ Or milkmaid, as the case may be. Between her face and her feet, there’s just a dress. You want to look at a real live girl, go to an estaminet.”

“What if they can’t resist my manly charms?” asked Manning.

Thomas didn’t think he had much to worry about on that score, but said only, “They’ll have been warned off fraternizing with us, too. And the other thing to keep in mind is that instead of a Wardmaster, they’ll have a Matron, and Ward Sisters instead of Ward Sergeants. Anybody here ever work for a woman before?”

“Does Mum count?” asked Perkins.

“No,” said Thomas. “Wardmaster says they have to be tough, to get to that level. So don’t give them any shit.” Thomas thought about the various tricks he’d seen hallboys try on Mrs. Patmore and Mrs. Hughes. “Don’t try to flatter your way around them, or argue with them, or give them any back-chat. Just say Yes, Matron, no, Matron, right away, Matron. Or Yes, Sister, as the case may be. Understood?”

“Yes, Matron,” said Manning. Rawlins thumped him one across the back of his head.

“Thank you, Rawlins,” Thomas said. “If you think taking orders from a woman is a joke, you will learn to regret it.” He moved back to the main topic. “Enough about the nurses. We want to make a good impression when we get there, right?”

People nodded, and said things like, “Sure,” “Yeah,” and “I guess.”

“So we have to be as ready as we can be. Tonight, go over your kit. If you need to draw anything from stores, do it tomorrow. And we’re going on the march, so if you’ve accumulated more shit than you can carry, now’s the time to figure out where you’re going to leave it.”

More nods and murmurs of agreement.

“Tomorrow, we’re getting up half an hour early for uniform inspection. If you’re planning on going out tomorrow night, there’d best not be much you need to fix. Thursday morning, we’re doing drill; Thursday night, polish boots and brass. Friday morning, we go. It’s a little tight, but as long as we don’t fuck about, we should be all right.”

Everyone looked at him for a moment. Finally, Manning said, “Are you fucking serious, mate?”

“Corporal,” said Thomas. 

“What?”

“Are you fucking serious, Corporal,” he repeated. “And yes, I am. Unless you think it’s a good idea that we show up at our new posting looking like a bunch of slovenly fuckups.”

“Well,” said Rawlins, “when you put it like that….”

There were a few murmurs of agreement, but not very enthusiastic ones. Thomas sighed. “Don’t fuck about, and I’ll stand the first round tomorrow night, all right?” 

That information was slightly better received, but Thomas wondered if it had been a mistake. He couldn’t imagine Carson, for instance, offering anybody a bribe to do what they were told. 

Since he’d spent most of the meal talking, Thomas was still eating his dinner when the rest of them began drifting away, either back to the wards for their evening tasks, or in search of someplace warm and dry to pass the time before returning to the barn. Soon, it was just him and Manning—who had long finished his meal, but seemed in no hurry to go anywhere. 

“Did he say why it was you?” Manning asked suddenly.

“Who?”

“The Wardmaster. Why he picked you for corporal.”

Oh. “No, he didn’t say.” 

“Only some of us have been here a lot longer. Rawlins. Applegate.”

And Manning. “Plank,” Thomas said. 

“It was never gonna be Plank.”

“True.” It wasn’t, Thomas thought, all that likely to have been Manning, either. Probably Rawlins, if it wasn’t him. 

Still, he knew this one from the other side—although he could barely, dimly remember what it had been like to want to be a valet like it was his hope of heaven—and he knew it mattered, what he said. “He said something about doing it a bit earlier than he planned, because he’s down two corporals.” That was true; he had said that. “And he mentioned more new blokes coming in the spring.” Also true. “He might be planning more promotions then.” The Wardmaster _hadn’t_ said that, but it might be true. And, more importantly, if Manning believed he was in with a chance, he wouldn’t want to make trouble. 

“Did he say who he’s looking at?”

“No.” If he’d thought the answer might be “yes,” Thomas would have asked if the Wardmaster had given Manning any special assignments, like he had Thomas. But he was fairly sure that if Manning had been given anything with a bit of extra responsibility to it, he’d have said something about it. 

Thomas would have, before. Back when he still cared about things like that.

“He didn’t say anything about anyone else,” Thomas continued. “I don’t reckon he’d think it was any of my business. He just mentioned the new spring drafts in passing, like.”

Manning nodded. “Right.” He stood up. “Guess I’ll go get started on my kit, then.”

“Good idea. I’ll be along soon.”

Manning left, leaving behind his plate and things. _Honestly_ , Thomas thought, as he gathered them up, along with his own, and put them in the washing-up bin. _If he wants to know why he’s not a bloody corporal…._

When he got back to the barn, Thomas found Manning and several of the others going over their kits—fortunately; he had no idea what he’d do if they weren’t. It was, for a change, not raining, so he spread out his groundsheet and methodically laid out all of his own things on it. He didn’t have much that wasn’t standard issue—a biscuit tin with his letters in, a small shaving mirror, his sewing kit. 

His cigarette case.

He stood up abruptly, his eyes stinging, and went outside. Rawlins wasn’t back yet, thank God—although he might have learned his lesson about following Thomas outside when he wanted to be alone. 

The cigarette case felt like it was burning in his hand, as he walked over to the rubble of the bombed-out house, and sat on his rock. Deliberately not thinking about what he was doing, he opened the case and took out a cigarette, and lit it with Peter’s lighter. 

It was stale, of course—he’d bought that pack back in England, six months ago. Or six centuries, maybe. Taking a deep drag from it, he propped the cigarette case open on his knee, held the lighter’s flame in front of it, and looked at Peter. 

“I’m a corporal now,” Thomas told him. “Like you. If I came here to take your place, I’ve done it.”

Peter, of course, didn’t say anything. Because he was dead. 

A sound escaped him, like the whine of an injured dog. In a single motion, he put out the lighter, closed the case, and stuffed both into his greatcoat pocket. 

There was a reason he kept it at the bottom of his pack. 

#

“Plank,” Thomas said with a sigh, “is there a reason your top button isn’t buttoned?”

“Yeah,” said Plank. “It fell off, didn’t it?”

At least he knew he’d been right not to leave this until the last minute. “Did you lose it?” he asked, holding on to his patience with both hands.

“No,” said Plank, proudly. “It’s right….” He began patting his pockets, finally finding it in the inside one. “Here.”

“Is there a reason you haven’t sewn it back on?”

“Me mum does all my sewing,” Plank explained. “And she isn’t here, is she?”

Thomas briefly considered trying to explain the flaw in Plank’s logic, but gave it up as a bad job. “Bring it to me later, and I’ll show you how to do it, all right?”

He moved on to the next one in line, which was Manning. “Your hair wants cutting, too.” He’d already made the same observation to Rawlins and Cadman. 

Collins was all right; so was Applegate. “Perkins, your puttees are on backwards.”

Perkins looked down at his legs. “What?”

“You’re meant to wrap them clockwise.”

“I’m left-handed,” Perkins explained.

“So what?” Honestly, was he going to salute with the wrong hand, too?

“I’ve been doing them this way all along,” Perkins added. 

“Then you’ve been doing them wrong all along,” Thomas said. “Start doing them correctly tomorrow.”

Liston also had puttee troubles. “You’re stepping them up too much. Each time you go around, you should overlap by half the width.”

“If I do that, I run out of puttee before I run out of leg,” Liston explained. “I’ve got long shanks, me.”

Oh, for God’s sake. “Then _lengthen_ them. Get another one, and sew some extra on.” Liston opened his mouth, and Thomas added, “I’ll show you how. After I help Plank with his button.”

Finally, Morris had a large and poorly-mended tear on one sleeve. Thomas supposed he deserved some credit for making an effort, but honestly, it looked like a two-year-old had done it. “I’ll show you how to fix that, too. Come find me at tea-break—Plank and Liston, you too, and anyone else who’s been waiting for Mum to turn up to do your mending.” 

Stepping back, Thomas glanced at his watch. They still had a few minutes before they had to leave. “All right. Let’s see if anybody remembers this—ten-SHUN!”

With a number of sidelong glances, they all shuffled more-or-less to attention. 

All except one, anyway. “Plank.”

Plank looked up, brightly.

“Look at the bloke next to you.”

Plank did so, then looked back at Thomas. He did not, however, change his position—which was “at ease,” not “attention.”

“Now look at the bloke on the other side.”

Plank looked again, his expression growing confused. 

“Do you notice a difference between what they’re doing, and what you’re doing?”

Slowly, Plank dropped his hands to his sides and brought his heels together. 

“Good.” Meanwhile, of course, everyone else had fallen out of “attention” to watch the show. “Let’s try it again, and this time, pretend like you’re taking it seriously.”

He took them through “attention,” “stand easy,” “at ease,” and back again—learning, as he did so, that while Plank was the only one badly confused about “attention,” several others had forgotten the difference between the latter two, which mainly had to do with where you put your hands. 

Clearly, they had their work cut out for them. At least, when he announced that they’d assemble the next morning at 0500 for drill, nobody asked if he was fucking serious.

Although, as they were walking to the station, Rawlins asked, “Are you planning to ease up a bit, once we get there?”

It was fairly obvious that the answer he was looking for was “yes,” but Thomas said, “Depends on how we measure up. When we get there.”

Rawlins nodded. “I guess.”

“They won’t know us there,” Thomas pointed out. “We want to make a good impression, don’t we?”

“Of course, but….”

“But what?”

“This stuff doesn’t come as easy to everybody as it does to you.”

Thomas scoffed. “What makes you think it comes easy?”

Rawlins looked him up and down. When that failed to enlighten Thomas, he asked, “How do you even _notice_ that somebody’s puttees are wrapped the wrong way round?”

“How do you _not_?” Admittedly, it had taken him a moment of close examination to figure out precisely what the problem was, but he’d noticed ages ago that Perkins always had something wrong with his puttees.

“ _That’s_ what I mean.” 

Thomas shrugged. “I guess it’s something you pick up being a footman.” Especially if the butler couldn’t stand you. “Half the job is being looked at. And the other half is being invisible.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Well, if you don’t do it right, the butler gets sarcastic about it. I can’t even imagine what he’d do if one of us showed up with a button missing.” 

“F.P.?” Rawlins suggested.

“Only since they outlawed flogging.” Now that he thought about it, Plank would never have had the chance to lose the button in the first place—it was clear enough how he’d done it; he was always tugging at his collar. Carson would have knocked him over the first time he saw him do it. 

When Thomas got to the NCOs’ room, after breakfast, he found two books sitting on his desk—a drill manual, and the RAMC training manual. Stuck inside the drill manual was a note:

_The RAMC one’s got stretcher drill in it._

_WT_

Suddenly, Thomas remembered that his cigarette case was still in his greatcoat pocket—he’d never put it back in his pack. But why had he thought of that now?

And, more to the point, who the fuck was WT? Nobody in the section had a surname starting with T—not that it would make sense for any of them to be leaving books on his desk. It had to be one of the NCOs— _one of the_ other _NCOs_ , he corrected himself. He mentally ran through their names.

Oh, right— _Tully_. Was it W for “Wardmaster”, or did he actually have a Christian name? 

And _that_ was why he’d thought of his cigarette case. The only letters he got now were from people who didn’t care who knew they had written them. He didn’t get letters signed with initials anymore, because all of the people who had written them were dead. 

Except for Theo, maybe. 

“Lad?”

Thomas spun around to see Jessop looking at him, with an expression of concern. 

“You all right?” Jessop asked.

Thomas nodded. “Fine. I was just—wondering if the Wardmaster’s got a Christian name.” He showed Jessop the note.

“William,” Jessop said. “But you didn’t hear it from me.”

Huh. “I didn’t even think about stretcher drill,” Thomas said. “There’s no way we’ll have time to practice that before we go.”

“It’d be a nasty trick to pull that on you the moment you get there,” Jessop said. “Don’t bite off more than you can chew—it’ll be more the sergeant’s job to get you all back in top form, if that’s what the officer expects. You just want to get ‘em used to hearing orders from you.”

“Didn’t think of it that way,” Thomas admitted. In that case, they were making a bit of progress. 

“And tidied up enough you reflect well on us, of course,” Jessop added. 

During the day, Thomas got through his work with the linen quickly—it really wasn’t that difficult, if you did it systematically—and spent as much time as he could with the manuals. The drill manual had a bit toward the beginning that explained why drill was important, and it made much the same point that Jessop had. Drill maneuvers, it said, weren’t terribly relevant to modern warfare—and were even less relevant to modern medical work—but they taught the men habits of discipline, as well as working together as a unit.

They could certainly use that. Technically, they had always been a section—section E of platoon 4—but they were always split upon duty, assigned in ones or twos to other sections. They paraded together, but there had only been a handful of parades since they’d been here, most of them very informal, like the one announcing Lamble’s death. But they weren’t really “new lads” anymore, and it wouldn’t be surprising if, at the new place, they were worked as a section. 

Returning to the book, Thomas had more trouble believing its claim that the habits of discipline and coordination would translate to conditions of actual battle. He could think of nothing less similar to the screaming nightmare of actual combat—what little he’d seen of it—than the orderly calm of a parade-ground. But he supposed that, for the likes of them, all that mattered was that the men in the brass hats _thought_ it did.

It was even harder to contain his scorn when he looked up stretcher drill in the RAMC manual, and read about using _six bearers_ to pick up a single wounded man and carry him across open, level ground. It was only with difficulty that Thomas could remember a time he’d used as many as four—the patient had been an officer the approximate size and weight of a fully-grown bull.

As instructed, Thomas reported to the Wardmaster’s office before dinner. The Wardmaster was already sitting in front of the fire with the bottle out, which took some of the guesswork out of figuring out what kind of conversation this was going to be. 

“So,” the Wardmaster said, pouring Thomas a drink and handing it to him. “First day as a fucking corporal. How’d it go?” He topped up his own glass.

“All right,” said Thomas. “I checked over everyone’s uniforms, and helped them with some mending. We’ll do a bit of drill tomorrow.”

“Good, good. You got the books?”

“Yes—thanks. Can I take them with me? There’s a lot I need to review.”

“Yeah, yeah, keep ‘em.” He tossed back his drink and poured another one. “All right—so what do you need to know about being a corporal?”

Thomas had forgotten that he was supposed to be thinking about questions to ask, but fortunately, the Wardmaster rolled on.

“One,” he said, holding up one finger, “don’t ask your lads to do anything you won’t do yourself. You already know that one, but it’s important. You don’t always have to take the worst job going, but if you always manage to be doing something else when there’s scut work to be done, they’ll notice. What you did on night duty was about right—rotate the lighter jobs with the harder ones, and take your turn on both.”

Thomas hadn’t been thinking of it quite that way at the time—he’d been thinking more of not having the other three at his throat—but he supposed it was a similar sort of thing. “All right.”

“Two—you know this one too. Your lads fuck up, you’re the one who gets your arse reamed out. Don’t bother saying you didn’t know or you couldn’t stop them, because now it’s your job to know, and stop them. Take it like a man, then turn around and give it back to the one what done it.”

Now that one, he really did know—although having official sanction to pass along whatever he got to the genuinely responsible party was a bit of a novelty. 

“Take that shit-show down in the Pharmacy Section. The corporal there was part of it—but even if he hadn’t been, he’d still be in the fucking shit. And you’d best believe that if the CMO had found out about it from anybody other than me, _I’d_ be in the shit, too. So that’s number three—if the fuck-up’s bad enough, you’ve got to pass it up the chain fast enough the shit don’t stick on you. Now, that one’s a real son of a bitch, especially when it’s your mates, because you don’t drop your mates in the shit. And that goes double when you’re responsible for them. It’s your job to protect them from the consequences of their own fucking stupidity—right up to the point when it isn’t.”

That _was_ a difficult one. “How do you tell? When you should cover for them, or…not?”

The Wardmaster topped up his glass, and Thomas’s as well. “You figure it out, you tell me. Heh. No, first of all, you’re not covering for them exactly—put a fucking pin in that; we’ll come back to it. Take that fucking shitshow with Diggs—we talked about that, didn’t we?”

“We did,” Thomas said. It seemed like ages ago, even though it had only been a few months. 

“I let too much of his shit slide, and it came back to bite me on the arse. We came up together, him and me and Jessop. Think you, and the Rawlins lad, and, I don’t know—who’s the biggest fuck-up in your section?”

Plank, obviously. “Sergeant?”

“Yeah, you don’t have to answer that. Point of advice, if a superior officer asks you to drop one of your lads in the shit, you can ask him to make it an order if he really wants to know—but if he does, then you’ve got to say. Where was I?”

“Diggs, Sergeant.”

“Right. So my point is, it’s no’ easy to tell when it’s time to hang some fuck-up out to dry. If we were doing this the way we planned, I’d say ask Jessop. There’s probably somebody at the fucking 14th you can ask, but you’ll have to figure out who. And you don’t want to go asking for help with every fucking thing—you know that one, too.” He paused and lit a cigarette, thinking for a moment. “When you want to hang one of your lads out to dry, is when he’s fucking up bad enough it’s hurting the rest of your lads. No’ just getting them killed, I mean, but if other blokes can’t do their fucking job, that’s when you start to think about cutting your fucking losses. You follow me?”

“I think so,” said Thomas. “If he’s doing more harm than good, like.”

“Yeah. Cause your job—your real fucking job—is to look out for your lads. Sometimes you’re protecting them from the fucking enemy, sometimes you’re protecting them from the fuckers in the brass hats, and sometimes you’re protecting them from themselves. And that’s—what was the thing I said we’d come back to?”

Thomas thought back. “Not covering for them, exactly.”

“Right. There’s a difference between covering shit up and keeping it in the fucking family. You want to handle the small shit yourself, before it comes to the attention of some Rupert with no sense of fucking proportion. Like that little pissant out at the Aid Post who got his patrol shot to ribbons. Now, it does not do anybody one bit of fucking harm if Jessop calls Young Allenby, Young Allenby. Or if I call the little pissant a little pissant. But if you were saying it, I’d do something about it, ‘cause I’d rather thump you myself than see you tied to a fucking post, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Thomas nodded. “That makes sense.” He hesitated. “Could Corporal Jessop have gotten F.P. for that?” He’d thought having to stand there and listen to Sherwood berate him was bad enough….

“Depends on whether or not the review board had a sense of fucking proportion,” said the Wardmaster. “They’d’ve had to bust him down to Private first—NCOs can’t get F.P.—and it’d be a fucking hard review board that would go that far.”

Thomas said, “One of the blokes from the ADS said he’d been a corporal for a bit, before he called a young officer a gobshite. That seems a bit worse than what Jessop said.”

“New Army bloke?”

Thomas nodded.

“Yeah, they’re a bit quicker to bust back a lad who just made rank, than a career NCO like Jessop. He a working-class lad?”

“His dad was a miner,” Thomas said. “But he was training for a doctor before the war.”

“Fuck me blind,” said the Wardmaster. “They’d have wanted to put him in his place, and no mistake. You probably noticed, most of the new-Army corporals we’ve got around here are what passes for fucking posh among us other ranks?”

“I did, yes.”

“They get a fucking leg-up on account of they know how to talk to officers. That’s why we were so fucking excited to find out you weren’t actually the posh git we took you for. I don’t mind moving the posh buggers up the ranks if they deserve it, but a proper working-class lad we can push up the ladder? That’s something to write home about.” He shook his head. “A fucking footman. It’s perfect.”

So that was the answer to Manning’s question, sort of. It was just as well he hadn’t known, when Manning had asked—though as far as Thomas was concerned, it was about time somebody got some advantage out of being working class. 

“So yeah,” the Wardmaster went on. “If you get into any shit that really fucking matters, you pass that straight upstairs. You’re a corporal, so right now, that usually just means to your Sergeant, or mebbe the Ward Sister. They’ll decide if it needs to go up into officers’ country. When it comes to the penny-ante shit, your job is to catch it before it gets to the sergeant—and if you miss it, his job is to catch it before it gets to the fucking Ruperts.” He lit another cigarette. “And which way does shit roll?”

“Downhill, Sergeant,” Thomas said.

“Right. And the further up it starts, the more fucking momentum it picks up. Sometimes you have to give your lads shit so they don’t get it from anybody else.”

That made sense—and was a far cry from being accused of bullying poor William, for saying what Carson would say if Thomas hadn’t gotten to it first. “So—what can I actually do to them, if I need to?”

“Officially, as a corporal, you’re limited to verbal fucking reprimands. Unofficially, you can assign ‘em to the worst jobs going, and make sure they know why. And you can do drills and inspections whenever the fuck you want, so you can use that. Putting them on report is the last fucking resort—and you don’t want to bang on about that all the time, or it gets to sound like ‘Just wait till Dad gets home.’”

That was about what Thomas had thought. “All right. I think I can manage that.”

“I know you can,” said the Wardmaster. “We’re doing this ahead of schedule, like I said, but if I didn’t think you could do it, I’d have come up with something else.”

Oh. That was unexpected. Thomas took a sip of his drink to cover his momentary flat-footedness. “Yes, Sergeant. I’ll do my best.”

“I know that, too.”

The Wardmaster went on to talk about a few more things, mostly practicalities to do with the march to CCS 14. Most of them had been there before at one time or another, accompanying wounded or getting supplies or things like that, but this time, Thomas would be responsible for making sure they all got there, together and on time. The place wasn’t hard to find—you followed the biggest and most well-traveled road leading rearward from the station—but the Wardmaster gave him a map. “Pick yer spots for halts—you can change them on the march if you need to, but it’s better, when the lads start grumbling about how isn’t it time for a break, if you can tell them how much further it is to the stopping place. And then stick to it unless there’s a damn good reason not to.”

That made sense—Thomas had always hated it when he got to the end of a job and was looking forward to a cigarette, and Carson turned up with some new thing that had to be done right away. 

After a few more details, the Wardmaster said, “About time we were getting to the fucking mess, I should think.”

He was right, and Thomas was a bit impressed, given that the only clock in the room was behind the Wardmaster’s back, and he had been drinking steadily for at least an hour. “Yes, Sergeant,” he said, quickly finishing his drink.

“You know you’re entitled to eat with the NCOs now, son?” the Wardmaster added.

“Yes.” Fuck. “Er, the lads were planning to go out tonight. Celebrate a bit.” God only knew what the others would think if he didn’t show up to his own celebration—but if the Wardmaster wanted him in the NCOs mess, that’s where he’d have to be.

“Right. Tomorrow, then. Better fuck off, before your mates start thinking I’ve eaten you.”

Thomas fucked off, and found several of the others milling around outside the mess. “Where have you been?” asked Perkins.

“The Wardmaster wanted to talk to me. Is this everyone?”

“Rawlins and Applegate went ahead to get us a table,” Manning said. “He decided to let us in on that secret place you two are always going.”

He didn’t go there all that often, but Thomas didn’t argue—he was glad enough to be going to Granny’s; the place Manning liked had terrible food and worse wine. 

Arriving at the estaminet, they found that Rawlins and Applegate had for some time been vigorously defending a large table against an artillery crew, and were beginning to lose ground. Fortunately, the reinforcements turned up just in time, and the artillerymen fell back in the face of superior numbers. 

“Can’t say I think much of the talent,” Manning said, when the elderly waiter brought their first round—which Thomas paid for as promised. 

“We come here for the food,” Rawlins explained. 

“What do they have?” Perkins asked.

Thomas, filling glasses from the wine jug, said, “ _Plat du jour_ , or egg and chips, if you’re a coward.” Egg and chips was standard estaminet fare; Granny had started offering it a while ago. 

“What’s plotty George?” asked Plank.

“It’s French for dish of the day,” Thomas explained. “Whatever the old lady can get. It’s always good.”

“I don’t like foreign food,” Plank said. “And isn’t there any beer?”

Thomas shrugged. “I don’t know—ask the gaffer when he comes back. But French beer is shite.”

The _plat du jour_ was the chicken stew that Rawlins had rhapsodized about the first time they came here—Thomas had never gotten to try it before, so he was doubly glad they’d come here. Most of the others plumped for the special as well, although a few, including Plank, went for the egg and chips. 

They did look like pretty good chips.

Beyond that, Thomas retained few impressions of the night. He prided himself on his ability to hold his drink, but thanks to the Wardmaster, he had started the evening at least two drinks ahead of everyone else, and by the third or fourth round—about the time they decamped to the estaminet where Manning’s black-haired girl worked—it was beginning to show. 

When, on the way there, the subject of buying him a girl arose, he was unable to marshal the mental resources to come up with a plausible objection. Fortunately, the plan foundered against the hard fact that none of them really had enough money for such an undertaking, and he ended up, instead, with an astonishingly filthy postcard.

“Is that a…carrot?” asked Perkins.

“Maybe,” said Thomas, holding it up to the light. “Could be a parsnip.” Parsnips were skinnier toward the bottom than carrots, but where this one was, you could only see the thick end of it. 

“She’s got nice tits, though,” Manning pointed out. 

If he said so.

They staggered home at some hour only slightly less obscene than the postcard, and when the alarm went, Thomas was not any more eager to get up and do drill than anyone else. It seemed monstrously unfair that, not only did he have to get up without anyone shouting at him to do it, he had to do the shouting for everyone else. 

Drill was a shitshow, of course. His newfound understanding of “form fours” had been washed out of his brain on a tide of cheap wine, and after a lot of confused milling about—on their _best_ attempt, half of them ended up facing the wrong way—Thomas had to get the book out and read the instructions aloud. 

Once they had finally achieved it, they had only a few minute left before reporting to the station for breakfast. Thomas decided to use it to practice saluting—which ought to have been easy enough—but he had them standing too close together, and several people had to dodge the elbow of the man next to them. 

“Right,” he said. “We’ll try this again tonight. Dismissed.”

Thomas did manage to perk up a bit over breakfast, though doing the linen chitty took him a lot longer than usual—some of the columns, he had to add up two or three times before he got a number that made sense. 

It wasn’t a big surprise that Rawlins didn’t turn up when he was waiting for the van—he was likely having the same kind of day Thomas was, and ward-work wasn’t as generous in its allowance of time for each task as linen-duty was. 

It was, however, a little surprising that Captain Allenby showed up instead. “There you are—one of the others said you were usually here at about this time.”

“Yes, sir. Waiting for the linen delivery.” 

“I heard about the, ah….” He gestured at Thomas’s new stripes. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“And you’re going to the 14th! I envy you. They’re doing some exciting work there with shell shock.”

“Are they, sir?” 

Allenby nodded. “The idea is to treat the milder cases without taking them out of the combat zone. Gives the men the idea that an episode of shell-shock is like a fever or dysentery—it might happen to anyone, and most recover quickly and without complications. Sending them back to England for specialist treatment only convinces them that they’re seriously ill.”

“Like the trick with the phony blind man, sir?”

“Mm, perhaps. Though there’s quite a bit of truth to it as well—if the problem is that the man’s been under too much strain, adding the fear that he’s gone permanently mad, and is destined to be a burden to his family, will only worsen his troubles. If he knows that he’s expected to get better, that’s one less thing for him to worry about.”

Thomas could see the point of that—hadn’t he wondered, after his “funny turn” the night Lamble had died, if he was a coward like Diggs? Jessop’s treating it as perfectly ordinary had likely helped. “I see, sir.”

“They’re setting up special wards for shell shock, and they’ll be taking cases from all over the 4th Army Area,” Allenby added. “The hope is that by having a group of them in one place, they’ll see other men with similar troubles getting better, and that will help them get better, too.”

Now that, Thomas wasn’t so sure about. Cowardice was contagious; everybody knew that. “What if they just give each other more things to worry about?” he asked. “Sir.”

“They may,” Captain Allenby admitted. “Some of the medical officers have expressed that very concern. But what we’ve been doing hasn’t worked especially well, so they’re trying different approaches in different areas.”

Well, he supposed anything was better than lining the poor buggers up and shooting them. “Yes, sir.”

“In any case, it should be interesting. I hope you’ll tell me what you think, when you get back, if they have you working on the shell shock wards at all.”

“Yes sir—oh, there’s the linen van.”

“I’ll get out of your hair. Congratulations again, and good luck!”

#

Things had been hectic in Rawlins’s ward that day, and by the time he got to the mess for dinner, most of the others were already there. 

They fell ominously silent when Rawlins joined them. He dug into his stew and waited for someone to say something. It was Manning who finally did—no surprise there. “What’s your take on the Barrow situation?”

Mostly, Rawlins wondered if what they were seeing was what it was like inside Barrow’s head _all the time_ —just a constant litany of everything the rest of them were doing wrong. But that wouldn’t be what Manning was asking about. “What do you mean?”

Before Manning could answer, Perkins said—doubtless more tactfully than Manning would have—“He’s taking this corporal thing pretty seriously.”

He was, but Rawlins wouldn’t have expected anything different. “He wants us to make a good impression when we get to the new place,” he pointed out. Barrow had told them all exactly that, the night before last—but it didn’t seem a good idea to remind them that what Barrow had actually _said_ was that they didn’t want to look like “slovenly fuckups.”

Rawlins had assumed at the time that he was exaggerating, but by now, he was starting to wonder if that was exactly what Barrow thought they were. 

Manning snorted. “He’s gone mad with power, is what he’s done.” 

He’d been right about the tact, then. “He’s probably nervous—you know, being corporal all of the sudden,” Rawlins said. Not that Barrow gave any signs of being nervous. Or of feeling anything at all, really.

“Does Barrow _get_ nervous?” Plank wondered.

“Fuck if I know,” Rawlins answered. He knew the others had him pegged for just about Barrow’s best mate, but Rawlins sometimes wondered if _Barrow_ thought they were. He couldn’t help remembering poor Lamb, too dumb to realize Barrow was only just barely putting up with him. “I know I would be.”

Manning scoffed. “What’s to be nervous about? We all know our jobs—whether he thinks we do or not.”

Rawlins decided not to point out that they’d all been happy enough to unanimously elect Barrow to do something about the billet situation, on the strength of his being lance-corporal. Now that he was a full corporal, if he wanted to run drill and carp at them about their uniforms, that just might be the price they paid for _not_ having to do things like convince the Wardmaster their billet really was unlivable. 

Taking a page from Barrow’s book, Rawlins sat back and listened as they all groused for a while about how they _did_ know their jobs, and who cared about things like Plank’s top button, anyway? 

He sat up and took notice, though, when—as they were all just about finished eating—Manning said, “So, are we _actually_ going to let him make us drill again, when we go off-duty tonight?”

For a long moment, no one said anything. Rawlins was starting to wonder if he was going to have to, when Collins said, “Not sure we really have a choice, mate. He does outrank us now.”

“What’s he going to do, if we all say no, we’re not fucking doing it?” Manning argued. 

Rawlins thought back to when they’d been talking about the billet. What was it Barrow had said? “I’m pretty sure that could be considered mutiny.” 

Manning scoffed again, but began to look a little doubtful. 

“Technically, yeah,” Collins agreed. “Anyway, we’re leaving for the CCS tomorrow—really not a good time to be fighting amongst ourselves, is it?”

There were some murmurs of agreement at that, and Rawlins added, “He’ll probably ease off once we get there. Either he’ll see that our uniforms look just as good as anybody else’s, or we’ll be too busy to bother about that stuff.”

Collins nodded. “Let’s give it some time,” he suggested to Manning. “If he gets worse, we’ll figure something out.” 

Everyone looked pretty relieved to have a solution that didn’t require an immediate confrontation with Barrow, and eventually, Manning nodded back. “Yeah, all right,” he said. 

As they were filling out of the mess, Collins fell into step next to Rawlins. “You might want to, uh, tip Barrow off, that the natives are getting restless, yeah?” he suggested, with a meaningful look in the direction of Manning’s back.

“Yeah,” Rawlins agreed.

#

The next morning at dawn, they assembled outside the barn in full kit. Last night’s drill practice had gone a bit better than the morning one, and this time, they all managed to line up neatly on the first try. “Squad—hut!” 

They all snapped to attention, even Plank. 

“Eyes right!”

They saluted the tree that stood between the barn and the ruined house—designated “Captain Oak” for the purpose.

“Form Fours!”

The back row took a step backwards—the first part of the “form fours” maneuver.

“Right!” This was the magic trick—everyone, in both rows, had to turn to the right, and, simultaneously, every _second_ man had to step to the side and then forward. The way it went wrong was if anyone forgot which group he was in. 

This time, everybody managed to remember—more or less. Perkins, who was standing next to Plank, had to throw an elbow to keep him where he was supposed to be.

“Slow-march.”

They set out. 

The effect was rather spoiled, of course, by the fact that all they were doing just now was going to the Dressing Station for breakfast, like they did every morning. Still, for a moment it was fairly grand. 

The day’s march, however, was fairly dull, the only thing that passed for excitement provided by a couple of occasions—one in the morning, one in the afternoon—when Thomas spotted an approaching staff car. As they were in the combat zone, they weren’t expected to halt and salute, but the Wardmaster had warned him that some particularly bloody-minded buggers on the General Staff weren’t above stopping a unit on the march to berate them for sloppy marching order. 

“Officer up ahead,” Thomas warned. “Everybody look sharp.” He turned around and marched backwards for a moment—an NCO skill he was trying to pick up as quickly as he could—to review his section. “Manning, Perkins, button your coats.”

They buttoned them, and the staff car passed without incident. There was no way to tell, of course, whether that was because they were doing well, or because the staff officer inside had better things to do.

About a mile out from the CCS, Thomas called one last halt. “Check your uniforms, and if you can’t get through the next half hour without a smoke, do it now. I do not want to see any cigarettes the rest of the march. Plank, button your top button, and I swear to God if it isn’t fucking buttoned when we get there, I will sew it to your neck.”

Plank gulped and buttoned his top button.

“We’re moving out again in a quarter-hour, sharp. Fall out.”

They fell out, some sitting down and getting out their cigarettes, some retiring behind a convenient bush. Thomas sat down on the cleanest patch of ground he could find and lit up. 

“You’re going to give yourself a heart attack,” Rawlins observed, sitting beside him. “You really think anybody’s going to be looking, the moment we get there, to see if Plank’s got his top button done up or not?”

“They might,” Thomas answered. 

“They might have a squad of estaminet girls ready to welcome us with whiskey and kisses, but I don’t think it’s likely,” Rawlins said. 

“Surprise inspection is probably a bit more likely than that,” Thomas pointed out. 

“A bit,” Rawlins agreed, but he sounded skeptical.

Thomas felt vindicated, therefore, when, upon reaching the CCS and identifying themselves at the sentry post, they were directed to a nearby square to “wait for the Sergeant.” Thomas had them line up in two ranks—a maneuver that required reversing “form fours”—and then kept them standing “at ease” while they waited.

It was only about ten minutes until the sergeant approached—an older bloke, with a Regular Army look to him. “Squad-hut!” he said, and they all snapped to attention, Thomas included. 

The sergeant looked them over, nodding a bit at the end of it. “Stand easy.” He beckoned Thomas out of line. “You’re the lot from the 47th?”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

He nodded. “You’ll find that Colonel Ottley runs a tighter ship than you’re used to.”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“You saying your old CMO runs a sloppy operation, Corporal?”

“No, Sergeant. Our Master-Sergeant mentioned that the CMO here has different priorities than Major Thwait.”

The Sergeant gave him a nod that Thomas had no trouble recognizing as grudging approval. It reminded him of Carson. “Barracks inspection at 1700, followed immediately by parade and uniform inspection. You’re in hut C-3. Dismissed.”

Thomas had to find somebody less intimidating to ask where hut C-3 was, but once he had, it wasn’t hard to find. It was a purpose-built Army hut of the kind they used for wards back at the 47th—weather-tight, and conveniently near the main buildings of the Station. Things were looking up already.

Going inside, they found a barracks with _actual bunks_. It was one big room, not divided up the way the wards were, and had room for a full platoon. About half the places were occupied, so there might be another new section arriving after theirs. The men from the other two sections were busy stowing their kit, making up their bunks, or polishing their boots and brass. “You heard the Sergeant,” Thomas told his section. “I’ll check at 1630 to see how we’re coming along.”

They moved toward the back half of the barracks—the first two sections had taken the places in front—and Thomas had just set his pack down on a bunk when someone popped out of a doorway he hadn’t seen and said, “Corporal? We’re in here.”

Oh, right. NCOs bunked separately, normally. Good thing he hadn’t gotten any further into settling in. “Thanks,” he said, picking up his kit again.

“Long march?” the other Corporal asked, sympathetically.

“All day,” Thomas said. The NCOs’ room had four bunks, stacked on top of each other to make room for a couple of desks. The other two had already chosen the upper bunks, so Thomas dropped his stuff on one of the lower ones. 

“I’m Blythe,” the first Corporal said. “And he’s Lyton.” He indicated, with a jerk of his head, the man who was lying on one of the bunks. 

“Barrow,” said Thomas. 

Lyton lowered the book he was reading. “Which lot are you, then?”

“Hm?”

Blythe explained, “They said we’re getting a section from a field ambulance, and one from an ADS.”

“Oh—we’re the field ambulance. The 47th.”

“Our sections are fresh from Blighty,” Blythe went on, as Thomas got started making up his bunk. “Lyton’s transferred over from the 9th Stationary, and I was already here.”

“That’s good,” Thomas said. “Give us the lay of the land, then.”

Blythe described the layout of the station, which had not been precisely what Thomas had in mind, but he supposed it was useful information in any case. He also observed that, while Blythe made a brave effort to talk like a soldier—sprinkling in the occasional “bloody,” for instance—his vowels gave him away as what the Wardmaster would term a “posh bugger.” Lyton didn’t talk as much, which made him harder to peg, but Thomas suspected he was the same.

At least neither of them was thick enough to ask him where he’d been to school. 

His bunk made up and his kit stowed, Thomas wiped the dust of the road off his boots and went back out into the main room to see if anyone had started a brew-up. Nobody had, so he collected the kettle, spirit stove, and tea—the section’s communal property having been distributed among them for the journey—and started one. 

When the tea was up, and the men started coming over to fill their mugs, he noticed the men from the other two sections looking on hopefully, but ignored them. The kettle only held enough for themselves, anyway.

Thomas sat on Rawlins’s footlocker, drinking his tea and having a smoke. The others eyed him warily for a moment or two, but soon enough got back to what they were doing, talking around him like they always had. 

A bit later, the other section arrived. “All right,” a familiar voice said, in a tone of one much-harassed. “Stow your shite; you can sight-see later. We’ve got a fucking inspection to get ready for.”

It was Rouse, his corporal’s stripes restored. Thomas raised a hand in greeting as he came past, heading for the last section of unoccupied bunks. “Barrow,” he said. “How the hell have you been?”

“Not bad,” Thomas said, angling his shoulder so that Rouse could see his stripes.

“Fuck me blind! When did that happen?”

“Tuesday afternoon.” He stood up and pointed the way to their room. “We’re in here.”

“Bet this is a step up from your barn,” Rouse observed, as they made their way to the NCOs’ room.

“Several,” said Thomas. He’d told Rouse about the barn when they were at the Aid Post. “Turns out it was structurally unsound—roof could have fallen down on top of us any time. That’s why we’re here—they needed a place to put us until it’s fixed.”

Tossing his things onto the bunk, Rouse said, “Your section’s the lot from the barn? Bit rough, bein’ put in charge of your mates.”

“It’s going all right so far. What about yours?” He can’t have been their corporal for long, since he hadn’t been one when they were at the Aid Post.

“Better than half of them, I just met this morning,” Rouse said. “I’ve got a few from my ADS, and a few from each of the ones to either side.”

“That’s a bit rough, too,” Thomas said. “They say the CMO here is kind of a hardarse.”

“I had formed that fucking impression, thanks. What did that sergeant have to say about your lot?”

So Rouse’s section’s initial inspection hadn’t gone as smoothly as his. Thomas hesitated a moment before saying, “Not much, but our Wardmaster gave me the heads-up about the CMO. We’ve been getting ready. You?”

“Lines ragged, greatcoats unbuttoned, brass dull, boots not shiny enough—all that shite. How we’re meant to fix all that in less than an hour, I couldn’t fucking tell you.”

Blythe, from his bunk, observed, “You’d best pray Colonel Ottley doesn’t come down to inspect us. If it’s just Sergeant McAllister, you might escape alive.”

“That’s Blythe,” Thomas introduced him. “And the other one’s Lyton. He’s Rouse.”

“Charmed,” said Lyton, not looking up from his book. 

“You chaps know each other?” Blythe asked. 

“Yeah,” said Rouse. 

Thomas would have elaborated, but Rouse didn’t seem to want to, so he followed his lead. “I could ask my lads to give yours a hand, if you like—I think we’re pretty well squared away.”

Rouse considered for a moment. “Nah. They can take us as we come.”

That didn’t seem wise to Thomas, but Rouse had presumably been a corporal for something longer than three days—counting his prior experience—so Thomas didn’t argue. 

When he went back out to the main room at 1630, he found everyone mostly ready. “All right, who knows where you’re supposed to stand for a barracks inspection?”

Thomas hoped somebody did, because he did not—they’d had tent inspections in training, but there wasn’t room for everybody to stand in there while it was being inspected.

“Uh…next to the footlocker, I think,” Rawlins said. 

That sounded about right to Thomas, but when nobody confirmed it, he asked the other two sections, “Do any of you lot know?”

One of the new lads, who had been watching them with interest, said, “It’s to the left of the footlocker, Corporal.”

“Thanks. All right, let’s try it.” Nobody moved for a moment. Thomas sighed and said, “Hut!”

They all got up and stood by their footlockers.

“Left is the other one, Plank.” 

He moved. 

Thomas looked them over. “Not bad—Rawlins, wipe off your boots. Perkins and Collins, you too. If you’ve been on your bunk since you made it, remember to pull it tight before the sergeant gets here.” They were all correctly made, but some of them were rumpled. “I’ll put the tea stuff away…whose turn is it to sweep the floor?”

They did periodically perform this task in the barn, but there wasn’t an official rota. Eventually, Applegate said, “I’ll do it.”

“Good. Plank, do you remember what I said about your top button?” It was currently buttoned, but a lot could happen in half an hour.

“Yes, Corp.” 

“All right. If there’s anything else wrong, we’ll find out about it together. As you were.”

Thomas dithered for a moment over where to put the tea things—there was plenty of room in his footlocker, but that might seem like he was claiming it as his own. There were a couple of extra bunks left over after theirs, so he decided to put it all in the locker to one of those. That finished, he sat down on the locker and smoked a cigarette. 

With five minutes before the sergeant was expected, the other three corporals came out of their room. Blythe and Lyton went to stand with their sections, and Rouse swore and raced around helped his frantically finish stowing their gear and straightening up their uniforms. “Look sharp,” Thomas told his. “Plank, your bunk. Manning, get rid of that cigarette.”

Plank straightened out his bunk, and Manning chucked his cigarette into the woodstove. At 1700 on the dot, the door banged open and Sergeant McAllister came in. They all snapped to attention, and Thomas felt a bit ill. 

The results of the first section’s inspection were not encouraging. Half of their bunks were incorrectly made, several of their greatcoats improperly folded—Thomas had forgotten that there _was_ a correct way to do it—and once he’d finished shouting about all that, Sergeant McAllister opened the footlockers of the worst offenders and shouted about those. 

Rouse’s group was next—the sergeant was working his way down the right-hand side of the barracks, and would presumably then work his way up the left side—and they fared even worse. From unpolished boots and unbuttoned tunics, to poorly-made beds and personal articles not properly stowed, no one escaped. What was worse was that Rouse, when McAllister got to him, tried to argue the point, saying, “Up at the Advanced Dressing Stations, we’ve got other things to worry about. Sergeant.”

That got him a full minute and a half of uninterrupted shouting, including several swearwords that Thomas had never heard spoken aloud before. Then McAllister wheeled on Thomas and said, “What about you? Have you got better things to worry about at the 47th Ambulance?”

Unable to think of a good answer to that question, Thomas kept his eyes front and said, “Sergeant.”

The sergeant huffed and moved on. They got the expected tongue-lashings over the greatcoats—out of all of them, only Manning had his folded correctly—but he found nothing else to find fault with. The final section went much the same as the first, and at the end of it, McAllister announced they’d be doing this again at 0530 tomorrow morning—“and, if fucking necessary, every morning until you buggers get it right!”

Then he marched them outside and put them through about a quarter of an hour of saluting drill. Rouse’s group again got the worst of it, but Thomas’s section came in for their share, as well—particularly Rawlins, who had trouble remembering to keep his elbow up. The first two sections, having just come from training, were much more practiced. At the end of it all, McAllister arranged them by sections, with the new lads at the front, Thomas’s section third, and Rouse’s fourth. 

It was not a massive surprise when, moments after they completed this maneuver, a staff car pulled up and disgorged a Colonel and his adjutant. This was clearly the moment McAllister had been rehearsing them for, and they managed, on his order, a crisp salute, in near-perfect unison. Rawlins even had his elbow up. 

Colonel Ottley went on to inspect the troops, pausing to speak to each corporal in turn. Blythe heard about the poor posture of several of his men—barely detectable to Thomas’s eye—and that several of them had been a fraction of a second behind on their salutes. Lyton was reminded that each rank of four should be ordered by height, and that at attention, they were to keep eyes front unless directed otherwise. He delivered these corrections in a tone of false jocularity that set Thomas’s teeth on edge; he could only imagine what Rouse was making of it. 

“Ah,” he said, when he got to Thomas. “You’re the chaps from the 47th Ambulance?”

“Yes, sir.” 

“Not as bad as I was expecting—but you seem to be missing a man.”

“Sir?”

“Major Thwaite said he was sending a section. Did you lose one on the way?”

Oh, this was fucking perfect. “No, sir. Private Lamble was killed several months ago. Enemy action. Haven’t had a replacement. Sir.”

As Thomas had expected, that set Colonel Ottley back on his heels a bit. “I see,” he said, and moved on.

Thomas wasn’t sure if seeing him taken down a peg helped Rouse hold on to his temper, but he did get through the his own little chat without calling the Colonel a gobshite, so that was all to the good. 

The Colonel concluded his inspection by telling the Sergeant, in a voice meant to carry, that he looked forward to see them all drill a week from Sunday. As soon as he’d gotten back into the car and fucked off, McAllister told them all that their inspection the next morning was now scheduled for 0500, to be followed by drill until breakfast. 

Then the sergeant buggered off as well, and they trooped back into the barracks, in higher spirits than Thomas would have expected, given the ordeal they’d just been through. “Barrow,” Manning said, clapping him on the shoulder, “you’ve been a bit of a wanker the last few days. But now I remember why we love you. ‘Enemy action. Sir.’” He clicked his heels and made a mock salute. 

Thomas shrugged a little. 

“Was one of your section really killed in action?” asked one of the new lads.

“Yes,” Thomas said. “Bringing in wounded from no-man’s land.”

“Fuck,” said Lyton.

“Barrow went out and got him,” Rawlins added. 

The other corporals got their other sections to work on fixing the deficiencies Sergeant McAllister had informed them of. “It was my fault about the coats,” Thomas told his. “I forgot all about how they want us to fold them.”

“And now he’s back to being a wanker again,” Manning said. 

“It’s lucky he was, though,” Perkins pointed out, with a glance over his shoulder at Rouse’s lot. “Or we’d have come off a lot worse.”

“What do you mean, _luck_?” Thomas objected. “That’s why I was doing it!”

They all looked around in confusion. “You knew that was going to happen?” Applegate asked.

“Not exactly,” Thomas answered. “But the Wardmaster said the CMO here was like that. I told you,” he reminded them. 

“When?” asked Collins.

“Oh,” said Rawlins. “You know what, he did. It was right before all that stuff about not fucking the nurses.”

There were murmurs of agreement. “What, did you lot think I was running drills at the crack of dawn for fun?”

For a moment, nobody said anything. “No,” Manning said unconvincingly. 

“Yeah, you did,” Plank pointed out. “Remember, you said he’d gone mad with power.”

Christ. “Why didn’t somebody say something?” Thomas asked.

Rawlins said, “That’s kind of what I was working up to when I asked if you were going to lighten up when we got here. But you seemed kind of keyed up, so….”

He probably hadn’t wanted Thomas shouting at him and telling him to fuck off again. Still, it was kind of impressive that they’d gone along with Thomas’s plans as willingly as they had, if they’d thought it was all his own idea. “I figured none of us had so much as thought about drill since we got to the 47th,” he explained. “Since I sure as fuck hadn’t. I had to borrow a drill manual to figure out what to do.”

They got a bit of a chuckle out of that. “I thought you just _knew_ all that stuff,” Perkins said. 

“I, uh, I remembered the bit about the coats,” Manning admitted. “I should have said something.”

“Well, show us now,” Thomas suggested. “Hang on, let me get mine.”

#

Barrow didn’t look a bit like his brother, but Rouse had noticed, when they were at the Front together, that every now and then there’d be a moment when he reminded him so much of Fitz that it _hurt_. Watching him work with his men on how to fold a coat was one of those times. 

He was a bit more high-and-mighty in his manner—Fitz had somehow made it seem like whatever he was telling you, you’d have thought of it yourself in a minute or two; Rouse had no idea how he’d managed it, and it didn’t look like Barrow knew, either. But the way he stepped back and had the Manning bloke show them how the coats were supposed to be folded, that was something Fitz would have done. 

So was the way, once he’d been shown the trick of it, Barrow did his perfectly—and utterly seriously, as though a thing like how many buttons showed when your coat was on the shelf actually _mattered_. 

And when one of the men—one of Rouse’s men, in fact; they were watching the lesson as keenly as Barrow’s ones were—said something about it being an awful lot of bother, for something that didn’t make a difference, Rouse knew exactly what he’d say.

“Once you get the hang of it, it won’t take any longer to do it properly.”

How many times had he heard Fitz say that, and about how many things? 

He was always right, was the bugger of it. Rouse had spent just enough time in the mines, before the grammar-school scholarship that got him up above ground for good, to learn that the men like that—the ones who made doing it right look just as easy as doing it wrong—were the ones you looked to when the bad air came up, or when the props started to creak. He _hadn’t_ been down the pit long enough to learn how you _got_ to be one of those men. 

That, he’d learned from Fitz: you did it by treating _everything_ like it was important, at least until you knew for God-damned sure that it wasn’t. 

So Rouse swallowed his pride and, when they’d finished fucking around with their coats, asked Barrow, “You lot mind giving us a hand, after all?”

Fitz probably would have had something to say, that would leave Rouse smarting less from the thrashing he’d gotten on the parade-ground. Barrow didn’t, but he didn’t rub it in, either—just nodded, once, and began putting his men where he wanted them. “Applegate, Cadman, Rawlins—would you mind walking those three,” he pointed, “through sorting out their bunks? Plank, let’s see if you remember what I showed you about buttons….”

By supper time, Rouse’s section wasn’t ready for their next inspection, but they at least had some idea of what they still had to do, after they ate. As they walked over to the mess, Rouse said to Barrow, “Fitz was good at all that, too.”

“What, sewing?” Barrow asked. Right before they’d left, he’d been helping one of Rouse’s men with a tear in his tunic.

“No—I mean, yeah, that, too. Motivating people, is what I meant.”

“I’m not good at that,” said Barrow. “And I thought I told you, I can’t talk about him.”

He’d said that at the _Front_ , sure—a moment’s distraction could cost lives, there. But they weren’t at the Front now. “What, ever?”

Barrow shook his head.

“All right.” Rouse wasn’t sure that was a good thing—remembering hurt, sure, but you had to let the pain out sometime, didn’t you? “It’s just that I knew him too—not as well as you did, of course, but—”

“Would you please shut the fuck up?”

Rouse shut the fuck up. 

Their boots crunched across the frost-covered grass. “Sorry,” Barrow said. “I just…can’t.”

“All right,” Rouse said again. If he didn’t want to talk about it, that was his own look-out. But, he decided, he was going to keep an eye on Barrow, he decided. For Fitz’s sake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Historical Note:
> 
> In the Great War (and pretty much every European war before it), the pace of fighting slowed considerably during winter. While railroads and steam-ships simplified logistics in the big picture, within a combat area, men and materiel were primarily moved over dirt roads, using human and animal muscle power. Along the Western Front, freezing and thawing cycles made dirt roads nearly impassable. No major offensives, or “pushes” were planned during the winter, but troops had to stay in the trenches, since any section left unguarded could be attacked opportunistically by the enemy. As Thomas notes in his letter to Anna, the reduction in violence meant fewer injuries, but the harsh living conditions contributed to illness.
> 
> By this point in the war, the armies along the Western Front were digging in for their second winter in essentially the same spots that they'd spent the winter of 1914. The upper echelons were looking ahead to the spring thaw and trying to develop plans to break the stalemate, but someone at Thomas's level would be completely cut off from that larger strategic picture.


	11. Chapter 9: December, 1915

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas finds out what they've been sent to the 14th Casualty Clearing Station to do.

**Chapter 9—December, 1915**

“What’d you get?” Rouse asked Thomas as they went in to breakfast, following morning drill. They’d been working their sections separately today, so each of the corporals had been given his day’s assignment individually.

“Fatigues in the morning, sentry in the afternoon,” Thomas said. “You?”

“What a bleedin’ coincidence—we’ve got sentry in the morning, fatigues in the afternoon.”

“Typical.” With some slightly variations, that was what they had been doing all week. Lyton and Blythe’s sections had been alternating their fatigues with working in the sinkroom, where bedpans and the like were washed. Personally, Thomas thought they may have gotten the better end of the bargain—if by a slight margin—but sinkroom work, being at least tenuously connected to the wards, was considered more prestigious. 

Thomas had attempted to boost morale by reading selections from the RAMC manual on the subject of camp sanitation—digging latrines for the new wards being their principal occupation on fatigues—but nobody was much buying it. 

Today, however, they had the exceedingly mild treat of being assigned to spread gravel on the paths between the new wards—and their latrines—and the other buildings. Thomas had figured out, through trial and error, that having more than four men digging the same hole meant you were getting in each other’s way, and that each working party had to have someone named as leader. He had no idea whether gravel-spreading was the same, but they were issued three wheelbarrows for the gravel, so he decided they might as well start with three parties of four each, and see how that went.

Picking team leaders was harder—he’d done it so far by choosing men who seemed to know a bit more than the others about digging holes, which he’d had ample opportunity to observe on the first morning of digging, when he’d been trying to supervise everybody at once. “Well,” he said, looking around at his section. “Anybody have experience spreading gravel?”

No one said anything for a moment. Finally, Widener said, “I mulched my Nan’s flower beds once.”

He supposed that might be similar. A bit. “Anyone else?”

Collins volunteered, “We spread all kinds of stuff on the farm. Not gravel, but….”

“All right, then. You take Rawlins, Applegate, and Cadman, and show us how it’s done. Widener, you’ve got Manning, Morris, and Liston. The rest of you are with me. We’ll start up by Hut D-5, and spread out from there.” Several of their assigned paths started there, so they’d be able to watch Collins’s team for a bit before the rest of them started. They’d also be working their way back towards the heap of gravel, so the work would get a bit easier as they went along. 

After they’d loaded up their wheelbarrows, Collins went to one of the already-graveled paths to check the depth of the gravel—something Thomas would not have thought of, at least not until they began the job and he started wondering whether they were putting down enough. 

When they reached the beginning of one of the paths to be graveled, it became immediately apparent why the procedure was necessary—the wheels of the wheelbarrows immediately became stuck in the mud. “Change of plan,” Thomas announced. “We start at this end of the path, and work our way up to D-5.” Noticing a few confused looks, he added, “That way, we’ll be pushing the wheelbarrows over the bits we’ve already done.” Now there were nods of comprehension. “All right, Collins. Show us what you’ve got.”

“Right,” said Collins. “So what we want to do is dump out the gravel, and send one bloke back for more while the rest of us spread it out—that way, we’re not standing around waiting for the next load.”

It would probably have taken Thomas a couple of trips between gravel heap and path to figure that one out, too. 

“We’ll pour it out in a line along the path,” Collins went on, suiting action to words. “They’ve got it about two inches deep on the other paths, so I reckon we want it about like this….”

When Collins’s team had spread the first load of gravel, and Applegate was dispatched back to the heap for another, Thomas dispersed his and Widener’s teams to other paths. 

It quickly became clear that, of the jobs to be done, fetching the gravel was by far the hardest. After several arguments over whose turn it was to do it, Thomas worked out a system: when a man brought the wheelbarrow up, he poured the gravel out and took his place at the front of the spreading group. The man at the back of the group collected the wheelbarrow and went for the next load. As long as everybody kept to his place in line, each would get three turns of spreading gravel before he found himself at the end of the line and had to go fetch it again. 

It worked well enough, although by the time they’d gotten about halfway up the path, they were far enough away from the gravel heap that it took noticeably less time to spread the gravel than it did to bring the next load, leaving the rest of them standing around for moments at a time, waiting for something to do. 

By three-quarters of the way up the path, people were starting to reach for their cigarettes during these moments of delay, and Thomas didn’t think quelling glares would be enough to suppress this behavior for long. “We’ll have a smoke break when we get to D-5,” he decided. 

The next few loads of gravel were brought up with surprising speed. But when they were only two or three wheelbarrow-loads away from finishing, who should come out of Hut D-5 than _Colonel fucking Ottley_. That didn’t seem too bad at first—they all braced up, he waved them off with an “as you were,”—but then he sat down on a chair, placed on the porch of the hut, and got out his pipe.

Now that put Thomas in a tight spot. It was his turn with the wheelbarrow, so on his way to the gravel-heap, he thought quickly. Was the unexpected appearance of a Colonel what the Wardmaster would call a _fucking good reason_ to call off a promised break? It was hard to say. 

On the one hand, they were certainly allowed to take breaks while on fatigues—this wasn’t a punishment detail or anything. On the other…well, it certainly wouldn’t look good. But the lads had been working extra-hard in anticipation of the break; it would not be at all fair to make them start a new job instead. And it would look a lot _worse_ if anyone noticed them faffing about trying to look busy until the Colonel had finished his pipe, and then immediately downing tools the moment he was out of sight. 

His load of gravel proved to be not quite enough to get them the whole way to the end of the path, so Thomas held out hope that the Colonel would bugger off while Perkins was getting a final one. 

He did not, unfortunately, bugger off. They took their time spreading out the last bit, everyone eying Thomas to see which way he would jump. “All right,” he finally said. “Fall out. Fifteen minutes.” They all shuffled off onto the grass and started sitting down. “Plank!” Thomas snapped. “Tell me you are not about to leave that rake lying in the middle of the path.”

“No, Corp,” said Plank, obediently. He picked up the rake and looked around as though trying to work out what to do with it.

“Put it in the wheelbarrow with the others,” Thomas said patiently, adding, “There’s a lad,” when Plank achieved this feat. 

Throughout all this, Thomas watched the Colonel out of the corner of his eye. He displayed no visible reaction whatsoever, but Thomas still couldn’t quite get his head round the idea of sitting down and smoking a cigarette in front of him—he probably couldn’t have done it in front of Major Thwaite, not at that close a range—so he said, “I’ll check on the others. No mucking about.”

The other two parties were beginning to converge on Hut D-5, but were each some distance down their respective paths. It wasn’t too difficult to see why. Two of Collins’s group had cigarettes in hand as they waited for Collins to come back with the wheelbarrow, including Cadman, whose turn it evidently was to go for the next one. He stood next to the wheelbarrow, apparently planning to finish his smoke before he got on with it. “You lot taking a break?” Thomas asked Collins. Thomas would not have called a break this close to the end of the job, but if Collins had, he wouldn’t get in his way about it.

“Not, er, officially-like,” Collins said sheepishly. 

Thomas looked at him for a moment.

“Oh. Um, Cadman, put that down and go fetch your load, on the double! Applegate, get spreading!”

They obeyed, and Thomas said, “There you go. All right?”

“All right,” Collins said. 

Thomas told him which path they were to do next, and then went to check on the other group.

Widener’s group, when he arrived, was engaged in vigorous debate over whose turn it was to go for the next load of gravel. Thomas listened for a moment, but when Morris appealed to him on the subject, saying, “I did it the second-to-last time, just before Widener,” Thomas silenced him with a gesture.

“Widener, whose turn is it?” he asked.

“I think Manning’s,” Widener said hesitantly. 

Thomas shook his head. “You’re in charge; if you say it’s Manning’s turn, it’s Manning’s turn. Whose turn is it?”

“Manning’s,” Widener said.

“Good,” said Thomas, and while Manning was trundling off with the wheelbarrow, he explained his system, adding, “If you lose track anyway, just pick somebody—it takes more time to argue about it than it does to do it, and if somebody ends up with an extra turn, it won’t kill them.”

Widener nodded. “How do you come up with this stuff?”

“I fuck around until I figure out what works,” Thomas answered. “When you’re done with this one, start on the path from the mess to D-6, all right?”

“All right.”

Thomas started back to his own group, smoking a cigarette and admiring their freshly-graveled path as he went. By the time he got there, Colonel Ottley had disappeared. “Did he say anything?” he asked, jerking his head toward the spot where the Colonel had been. 

“No,” said Perkins. “He sort of nodded, when he went back inside.”

He’d take it, Thomas decided.

The next day was Sunday, and their promised parade before the Colonel. Normally, everybody got an extra hour of sleep on Sundays, but Sergeant McAllister gave them an extra hour of drill, instead. Thomas supposed it paid off; the Colonel had few complaints, and Sergeant McAllister assigned them only one morning of drill for the following week. 

Thomas held out some hope that their managing to redeem themselves on the parade ground would translate into more interesting duties as well, but on Monday, they got the usual instructions—it was sentry duty in the morning this time, and fatigues in the afternoon. 

There was a fair bit of grumbling as Thomas gave out the sentry-post assignments. 

“Did they bring us here to be navvies?”

“Not what I joined the RAMC for.”

“It’s nice sleeping under a roof, but I’m not sure it’s worth it.”

“Look,” Thomas said. “We’re the new blokes here, and we’ve not exactly impressed them so far.”

“We’ve not had a chance to,” Manning pointed out.

“Well, no,” Thomas admitted. “But the other three sections are in the same boat. Best be patient about it, and if nothing changes in another week or two, I’ll think up some way to ask Sergeant McAllister if there’s anything we can do to get a chance to work on wards.” 

It turned out, however, that something changed the very next day. When they reported in at the tool shed for fatigues after breakfast, a Sergeant they didn’t know was standing outside with a half-dozen twitchy-looking men in hospital blues. “Corporal Barrow?” the Sergeant said.

“Sergeant.”

“I’ve got some extra help for you today.” 

The twitchy blokes didn’t look like they’d be much help, but Thomas suspected that wasn’t the point. “D-5?” D-5 was one of the new shell shock wards, and had received its first consignment of patients on Saturday. 

“Yep.”

“Any, er, special instructions?” Thomas asked. 

The sergeant shook his head. “Himself said they’re to pull their weight; that’s it.”

“Himself” was the Colonel, and there was no arguing with that. “All right—fall in,” he told them, and went inside to find out what the _other_ part of their work assignment was.

Inside, their work assignment and equipment issue tended to confirm his suspicions about the amount of help that could be expected from the shell shock cases were confirmed. They were graveling paths again, and about the same amount as when there were only twelve in the party. They were also issued rakes for the new men, but no extra wheelbarrows.

Thomas had to think a moment about how to handle this situation. On their second day of doing gravel, they’d briefly tried having everyone work on the same section of path at the same time, in case that solved the problem of delays waiting for gravel. It hadn’t; it just left more people standing around waiting for something to do.

So three parties again was the way to do it—but should he take all the twitchy blokes himself? They’d never get anything done, but at least the others wouldn’t be stuck with them. 

On the other hand, everyone had been banging on about wanting to look after patients again, and since Thomas was fairly sure that was what this _was_ , he might as well take them at their word. He picked Manning and Applegate as team leaders, and put two of the twitchy blokes on each team. 

Then he pulled Manning and Applegate aside, on the pretext of getting the wheelbarrows, and explained, “They’re shell shock cases. I heard a bit about this before we left the 47th, and I think the play is to treat them as normally as possible. Colonel’s orders are that they’re to do their share, so…do the best you can with that. If I find out anything more, I’ll let you know. All right?”

“All right,” they said, and scattered back to their teams. 

The paths they were assigned today led to a half-finished hut, which further deepened Thomas’s impression that getting the job done was not precisely the point of today’s exercise. “Names?” he asked the new blokes, as they headed to the start of their assigned path. 

“Benson,” said the shorter of the two, his head jerking to one side so that his ear nearly touched his shoulder. “He, uh.” Twitch. “Doesn’t talk.”

Fantastic. “You don’t happen to know his name?”

Twitch. “No, Corp.” 

“All right.” Thomas looked at the other bloke, who was tall and slim. “We’ll call you Stretch, all right?”

Stretch nodded, unless that was a twitch, too. 

“I’m Barrow, and these are Rawlins, Widener, and Plank. Either of you ever spread gravel before?”

Stretch shook his head, and Benson said, “No, Corp.”

“We’ve done it the last three days, so we’re bloody experts. Just do what we do, and you’ll soon get the hang of it.”

He did, however, put them at the front of the line, so that he’d be able to watch them for a bit before it was their turn to fetch the gravel. Stretch, he discovered, was not a bad worker, at least for a job that didn’t require him to talk. Benson, in addition to the head-twitch, had his right hand curled into a sort of claw, that made it fairly difficult for him to hold a rake. Thomas didn’t think much of his chances at being able to manage the wheelbarrow, and when they had worked their way to the back of the line, said, “Why don’t you two go together, this time?”

Benson said “Yes, Corp,” and they went, each taking one handle of the wheelbarrow.

Well, that wasn’t precisely how he’d have done it, but he supposed it would work. 

Once they’d gone, and the rest of them were spreading gravel, Plank said meditatively, “You know, I don’t think those blokes are quite right.”

Everyone stared at him.

“In the head,” he added.

Rawlins nodded slowly. “You may be on to something there, mate.” 

It took Benson and Stretch approximately twice as long as anyone else to fetch the gravel, and as the morning wore on, it became more and more tempting to call a smoke break during the extended absences. One time, Thomas went with them to see if there was some part of the procedure that they found particularly difficult, but no, they just went slowly, Stretch putting the gravel into the wheelbarrow as carefully as if he were packing Mills bombs, and Benson having as much difficulty with the shovel as he did with the rake. Thomas left them to it.

He was starting to think about the mid-morning break, and was eyeing a tree up ahead as a prospective stopping place, to be announced the next time somebody complained, when a Major approached. He delivered his “as you were” almost as soon as he saw them noticing him, but then beckoned Thomas aside. “How are you making out with them?” he asked. He was a man of about forty, bespectacled and balding.

“Not bad, sir.” He hesitated, then decided he might as well confirm his guess. “Is this part of their treatment, sir?” 

Instead of answering, the Major asked, “How do you figure that?”

Thomas decided to go with the simplest of the possible answers. “Well, we were working a bit faster without them, sir.”

“Ah. Well, yes, it is part of their treatment. We’ve found it most effective to keep these types of cases under military discipline—drill, fatigues, and the like. Haven’t you got some others?” he asked suddenly.

“Yes, sir. They’re with the other two work parties. In fact, I was just thinking about going to look in on how they’re doing.” He suspected that was what the Major would want to do next, and on the whole Thomas thought it best if he wasn’t sprung on Manning and Applegate unawares.

“Ah, good. I’ll join you, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course, sir. One moment.” He went back to the group and explained where he was going. “Rawlins is in charge till I get back. Break time’s when we get to that tree.”

Returning to the Major, he said, “The next group is just over here, sir.” He led the way towards Manning’s group. “I wonder, sir, if there’s anything more you can tell me about how this helps with the men’s treatment.”

The Major raised an eyebrow, and Thomas realized belatedly that the question could sound a bit impertinent. 

“It’s just that I thought it might be good for morale if I could explain to my lads how our bit fits into the larger picture,” he explained. “We’re used to working on wards, and there’s been a bit of grumbling about how we’ve been on fatigues since we got here.” That was only part of the reason he was asking, but it wasn’t as though he could say _and also, I’d like to be able to impress a certain Captain who, incidentally, wants to sleep with me_. 

“Hmm,” said the Major. “As a matter of fact, we’re planning some lectures for the men about our approach to shell shock, but I suppose it does no harm to give you some of the highlights in advance. Our aim is to get the patients over this bit of rough ground, and back to their duties, with as little disruption as we can. Toward that end, we strive to keep their routine here as normal as possible—as though they were doing a spell of behind-the-lines work with their own units.”

“I see, sir.” That was more-or-less what Captain Allenby had said, although to Thomas’s mind, Allenby was less of a tit about it. “So we’re, ah, sort of standing in for their own mates, then? Setting a good example?”

“Hmm, yes, in fact. The drive to fit in, to be part of the crowd, is a natural part of the human condition. By mixing the patients in with our own personnel, we mean to give them something to live up to.”

Thomas nodded. “So they aren’t just trying to fit in with others who…are having a hard time, and making each other worse? Sir.”

“Precisely.” The Major gave him a speculative look. “Someone mentioned one of the new corporals had been a medical student before the war…?”

Wanker. What, did he think there could only be one of them among the “other ranks” who had a brain in his head? “Yes, sir. That’d be Corporal Rouse. He’s dead clever,” Thomas said earnestly.

“Oh,” said the Major, plainly doing his best to look as though that was the answer he’d been expecting. “Well, I shall have to keep an eye out.”

By now, they had nearly reached the place where Manning’s party was working. Thomas slowed his steps so that they could have a moment’s observation before they were noticed. One of Manning’s two twitchy blokes was bringing up the wheelbarrow—good. The other had drifted away from the group and was leaning on his rake, looking a bit vacant, but as Thomas watched, Perkins got his attention and brought him back over to work with the others—also good. His own men seemed to be keeping up the pace of the work fairly well, Cadman smoothly taking over the wheelbarrow after the first twitchy bloke had emptied it, and trotting down the path for the next load. 

“Manning!” Thomas called. 

Manning looked up, and an instant later they all snapped to—even the dozy fellow managed it. “As you were,” said the Major. 

Thomas waved Manning over. “Doing all right?”

Manning nodded, giving the Major a wary look. “Not bad.”

“New blokes keeping up?”

“Uh—the one’s not bad, but Fuller—” He indicated the dozy bloke—“gets to woolgathering. Only tried him with the wheelbarrow once; had to go fetch him back.” With another glance at the Major, he added, “I mean, he’s all right, if someone keeps after him.”

Thomas nodded. “Try sending someone with him, next time it’s his turn. See if that works.” 

“All right,” said Manning, doubtfully.

“We want ‘em pulling their weight, even if it isn’t quite the quickest way,” Thomas explained. “If I have that right, sir?”

“Yes,” said the Major. “As much as possible, we want them held to the same expectations as everyone else, so if each of you takes a turn, er, operating the wheelbarrow, they should as well.”

Manning still looked a bit confused, so Thomas added, “We’ll talk about it more later.”

They continued on to where Applegate’s group was working—or some of them were, anyway. Applegate was, presumably, off with the wheelbarrow, and of their two twitchy blokes, one was sitting on the ground by the path in a sort of dejected heap, and the other, both of his arms curled up towards his chest, was standing with the others and holding a rake, but just sort of stirring the air with it. “Are these two, by any chance, more difficult cases than the others, sir?” Thomas asked. He hoped they were, so that Applegate wouldn’t be blamed for this sorry spectacle.

“Not exactly,” said the Major. “They were both doing a bit better than this earlier, but some ups and downs are to be expected. I’ll have a word with them, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course, sir.”

The Major started with the bloke with the arms, taking the rake from him and then using his hands to straighten out the man’s right arm. “That’s quite enough of this, Harper. You know perfectly well that there is nothing wrong with your arms.” 

Thomas looked away, embarrassed. Applegate was on his way back now, so Thomas hurried over to meet him. “Officer in charge of the new blokes is having a look at them. What’s going on?”

“Buggered if I know,” said Applegate. “They were doing all right for a bit, then that one—Jones—started crying for no reason. Then the other one started doin’ that queer thing with his arms. He was doin’ it a bit before, but he’d sort of catch himself and stop.”

“Huh.” Thomas wondered if seeing the first bloke fall apart had encouraged the other one to let himself go. “What’d you do about Jones?”

“Gave ‘im a cigarette and told him to take a minute to pull himself together. Was that wrong?”

Thomas shrugged. “It’s about what I’d have done. Maybe the officer’ll have some better ideas.” 

They reached the end of the graveled portion of the path, and Applegate dumped out the gravel. Harper, now apparently cured of whatever he’d imagined was wrong with his arms, joined the others in raking it out, and the Major moved on to remonstrate with the weeping Jones. Thomas, wanting to look busy, picked up the rake that Johnson had abandoned and helped the others with the gravel. 

Unfortunately, he couldn’t help hearing what the Major was saying to Jones. He started out by demanding to know what had set him off, and then, when Jones was unable to produce a satisfactory explanation—he just muttered something about a mate of his who’d been killed—pointed out that the others were “carrying on with the job, while you sit here blubbing. What do you suppose they must think?”

“Wish he’d leave the poor bastard be, is what I think,” muttered Perkins.

 _Or at least take him somewhere_ else, Thomas thought, but he couldn’t have Perkins contradicting an officer—at least not when there was a chance he might _hear_ —so he said, “None of that. I’m sure he knows what he’s doing.”

A few moments later, Jones—still wet-eyed and sniffling—came and took the rake from Thomas, so Thomas, beckoning Applegate to join him, went over to the Major. Before Thomas could even ask, the Major said, “You have to be firm with these chaps—too much sympathy only encourages them.”

“Yes, sir,” said Thomas. 

“Those two should be all right now, but if they give you any more trouble, remind them that you know perfectly well that they are able to do the work.”

“Yes, sir,” said Applegate. 

“Carry on, then,” the Major said, and left them. 

Thomas avoided looking at Applegate for a moment. He knew he ought to offer to switch teams, given that Jones and Harper seemed a bit more challenging to supervise than the others—but he really, really didn’t want to. Finally, he said, “Can you manage here? I could take over this lot, if you’d rather.”

If it was put to him that way, Thomas knew he’d say he could manage, whether he wanted to or not. And Applegate didn’t disappoint, barely hesitating before he squared his shoulders and said, “I’ll be all right.”

“Good. I’ll rearrange the teams tomorrow.” Assuming they got the twitchy blokes again tomorrow, anyway. “Split those two up, see if that helps.” 

Thomas went back to his own group, where Benson and Stretch, at least, managed to get through the rest of the morning’s work without crying. Still, Thomas was glad enough to part ways with them, when they returned the tools to the tool-shed and the twitchy blokes’ sergeant turned up to collect them.

In that afternoon’s post—brought to the guardhouse while they were on sentry-duty—Thomas got a couple of letters. There being very little to do, apart from checking the passes of people coming and going, Thomas opened the first of the letters, which was from Mrs. Hughes.

_20 December, 1915_

_Dear Thomas,_

_I hope this finds you well. I’m sending this separately from your parcel, because the post office wasn’t entirely sure that the parcel would arrive in time, and I wanted you to know that we are thinking of you._

Arrive in time for _what_? She couldn’t mean before he left the 47th, because he hadn’t written them about the move, yet. 

_We thought of you particularly yesterday because it was our concert to benefit the hospital. A few of the patients were able to come, and some of the orderlies. I wondered what you will be doing for Christmas. Perhaps in the war areas it is just another day, but I hope they will arrange something special for you._

Oh—in time for _Christmas_ , she meant. Thomas had been doing his best to ignore the veritable blizzard of cards and parcels coming to the barracks, as well as the group of nurses who were going around pestering people about performing at _their_ concert, which would be held Christmas afternoon. 

Last Christmas, of course, he’d been putting together a parcel of his own, and trying not to think about—trying not to think about things that he had even more reason not to think about now. Things that would never happen.

He forced his attention back to the letter. Mrs. Hughes wrote several paragraphs about the concert—what each of the ladies had done, how much they’d raised for the hospital, the village butcher’s surprising talent for juggling. She concluded,

_Was your Wardmaster able to do anything about the billet? I do hate to think of you spending the winter in a cold, drafty barn—though I suppose with a war on, it could be much worse._

_Love,_

_Mrs. Hughes_

The other letter wasn’t a letter at all, but a card, signed by all of them at Downton, from Daisy to Mr. Carson. Anna had clearly organized it; she’d written a note mentioning the parcel, and suggesting that the snow-covered village pictured on the front of the card looked a bit like Downton village. 

Thomas didn’t really see it—except to the extent that all English villages looked a bit alike—but at least it wasn’t one of the ones with Father Christmas dressed in khaki or happy soldiers decorating Christmas trees in the trenches.

Rawlins, who’d been out patrolling to the next sentry post, came into the guardhouse, stamping his feet and blowing on his hands. “It’s getting cold out there—glad we did our fatigues this morning. Who’s that from?” he asked, nodding towards Thomas’s card.

“The people I used to work with. Yours is over there.”

Rawlins had gotten a handful of letters and a parcel; he tore into the latter immediately and, after setting aside several smaller packages in bright wrapping paper, popped open a tin of small mince pies, and handed one to Thomas. 

“Ta,” he said. It wasn’t as good as Mrs. Patmore’s, but it wasn’t half-bad. 

That evening, walking toward the mess with Rouse, Thomas was surprised to hear that he hadn’t been issued a set of twitchy blokes, for his section’s turn on fatigues in the afternoon. “Wish I had gotten some,” Rouse said. “Might make this more interesting.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought about it,” Thomas agreed. He went on to explain what the Major had told him, about keeping the men to a normal sort of camp routine, and setting an example for them to live up to. 

“Hm,” Rouse said, as they entered the NCOs’ mess and took their places. “I wonder what _else_ they’re doing?”

“What’d’you mean?”

“Fatigues and telling them to buck up can’t be the whole of the treatment, can it?”

Thomas shrugged. “They are supposed to be light cases.”

Rouse seemed about to say something more, but clammed up when Blythe and Lyton came in, Lyton greeting them with, “’ullo, lads!”

“Fucking cunt,” Rouse muttered, under his breath. Thomas just shook his head. He knew perfectly well that when Lyton said things like that, he was trying to make some kind of a point about their being working class; what he didn’t understand was why Rouse gave a flying fuck. 

Blythe and Lyton were nearly the last to show up, and soon dishes were being passed up and down the table. Thomas applied himself to eating, having learned that there was very little in the way of conversation here that he was actually interested in. 

Gradually, though, bits and pieces of what others were saying forced themselves onto his attention.

“—off Boulougne—”

“—most of the patients off, I think—”

“—knew they’d stoop to it—”

“— _Lusitania._ ”

“—bad as the _Albion_.”

It was Blythe who said the last. “I’m sorry,” Thomas said. “What did you say?”

Blythe glanced over at him. “I said it didn’t seem to be as bad as the _Albion_. In terms of lives lost.”

“What didn’t? What are you talking about?”

Rouse put a hand on his arm. “Mate.”

“Fritz sunk another hospital ship today,” Blythe explained. “The _Huntley_. Torpedoed it in the Channel.”

Suddenly, Thomas felt as if he couldn’t breathe. Without conscious thought, he pushed his chair back, and then was rushing headlong out of the room. He blinked, and then he was outside, staggering up the path toward their barracks; blinked again, and he was doubled over, retching. 

“Easy, mate. Easy. Here.” Rouse threw his greatcoat over his shoulders, leaving his arm there along with it. “You all right?”

Hands shaking, Thomas fumbled his handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his mouth. “Yeah. I just, uh—I don’t feel so good.”

“Yeah. Here, come on.” He led Thomas over to a bench and sat him down on it. “It’s all right,” Rouse said. “It’s a hell of a thing, yeah?”

Thomas shook his head. “I’m fine. I think I just got a bit of bad beef, or something. It’s not—I’m fine.”

Rouse didn’t answer for a moment. “You sure?” he finally asked.

“Yeah. I’m, uh…I’m just gonna go to bed.” Thomas stood up. He was done with his duties for the day; he could go to bed if he wanted to. “Can you….?” He gestured back toward the mess hall. _Tell them something; anything_. 

Rouse nodded. “Sure. But let’s get you sorted, first.”

Thomas didn’t need anybody putting him to bed, but going along with it was easier than arguing. Rouse walked him back to the barracks, and while Thomas was getting undressed and crawling into his bunk, mixed him up a bromide powder. “Here,” he said, handing it to Thomas in a tin cup. “Knock that back.”

Thomas knocked it back. “Thanks.” Almost immediately, his eyelids started feeling heavy.

Rouse sat down on his own bunk and sighed. “You know this is about Fitz, right? You’re not actually that thick.”

“Fuck off,” Thomas said, and fell asleep.

#

“You know this is about Fitz, right?” Rouse asked. “You’re not actually that thick.”

“F’koff,” Barrow mumbled. 

Rouse ignored him. “I know it hurts, thinking about him. How he died. But you can’t avoid it forever. Facing up to it’s the only way you get past it. Learned that when my mum died.” Maybe Barrow would listen, if he wasn’t actually talking about Fitz. “I tried like hell not to be at home, so I wouldn’t have to watch the rest of ‘em grieve, and so I could pretend she was still there. That’s when I started doing real well in school, so it wasn’t all a bad thing—but it didn’t help me come to grips with it, not at all. Something’d happen to remind me of her, and it would hurt just as much as the day she died. You have to let it hurt before it can heal.”

Barrow didn’t say anything—not even “fuck off” again. Rouse got up and poked him. He was dead asleep.

Bloody hell. Rouse had meant for the powder to loosen him up a bit, not knock him out. But now that he thought about it, Barrow didn’t sleep for shit; a man couldn’t get up for a piss in the middle of the night without finding him sitting up smoking, and he was always up long before the rest of them, going over his already-immaculate uniform. The poor bastard was probably exhausted. The rest would likely do him some good—even if it wasn’t the kind of good Rouse had intended.

No point sitting here watching him sleep, though. Rouse went back to the NCO’s mess—might as well get Barrow’s coat for him. 

The others were nearly done eating, and Rouse wasn’t too hungry himself, but he stuffed some bread and cheese into his pockets—there was no point passing up food he was entitled to, either. While he was doing so, one of the other corporals from their barracks asked, “What’s the matter with Barrow?”

It was the one who wasn’t quite so great a prick as the other—Blythe, Rouse thought—so he said, “Stomachache.” He wasn’t about to tell _them_ about Fitz. “He went to bed, so try not to make too much noise when you go in, yeah?”

“All right,” said Blythe. “He need anything?”

“Nah.” 

Rouse went outside and loitered, smoking a cigarette from the packet he found in Barrow’s pocket and watching the door to the enlisted men’s mess until just the right moment when he could accidentally meet up with Barrow’s section when they came out.

They came out in a pack, of course—they were an insular lot, did everything together. Rouse picked Rawlins out of the crowd, and timed his steps to intersect with him. Rawlins would not have been his first choice of confidante—he manners and accent marked him out as the sort Rouse trusted the least, born just enough above him to look down on him—but Barrow seemed to like him, so needs must. 

“Corp,” Rawlins said, with a nod. 

“Walk with me a minute,” Rouse said, slowing his steps so they’d fall behind the rest of Barrow’s section. 

Rawlins followed his lead, giving him an expectant look. 

“You’re gonna want to keep an eye on Barrow, the next couple of days,” he said. “When I’m not around to do it. This thing with the _Huntley_ has him rattled.”

Rawlins looked puzzled. “All right,” he said slowly. “Any idea why? I mean, there’ s not much that rattles him.”

Of course—Barrow didn’t talk about Fitz. “You don’t know about his brother.”

“Uh—he might have mentioned he has one,” Rawlins said doubtfully.

“Had,” Rouse said. “He went down on the _Albion_.”

“Oh,” Rawlins said. “Damn. He never said.”

“He doesn’t talk about it. I only know because I knew him. The brother, I mean. Fitz.”

Rawlins looked toward the barracks, actually leaning toward it a bit, like a dog straining at a lead. “Is he all right?”

No. “He’s pretending he is. I tried to get him to talk about it, but he took a powder and went to bed.” 

“That’s not like him,” Rawlins said. “He’s…I mean, _nothing_ gets to him. He’s unflappable.”

“I noticed that, too.” 

“At the Front?”

“Yeah.”

“He never said much about what it was like up there.”

Rawlins lit another of Barrow’s cigarettes. “It was shit, is what it was like. I mean, most of the time it’s like a fucking village doctor’s office, except in a hole in the ground, but then every couple of nights it all goes to shit and you’re up to your elbows in blood and have about ten seconds to decide which of the blokes in front of you might live if the Doc seems him first.” They reached the barracks; Rouse sat down on the steps, tugging Barrow’s coat around him. “Barrow was really fucking good at it, too.” 

Rawlins, sitting down on another step, nodded eagerly and launched into a story about Barrow sorting through a day’s worth of amputated limbs to find some bloke’s wedding ring. 

It was almost something Rouse could imagine Fitz doing. Except that if it were Fitz, the point of the story would be his bone-deep kindness, that he’d done something as horrible as that just to help a man who was, honestly, acting like a complete tosser. _It wasn’t much fun_ , he could almost hear Fitz saying, _but we can’t do anything about his hand, and if having his ring back makes him feel a bit better about it…._

Rawlins’s point, however, seemed to be that Barrow hadn’t _noticed_ that digging around in a pile of severed limbs was at all unusual. Granted, after a few months in the trenches, it wouldn’t be, but…. “When did you say this happened?”

“August?” Rawlins shrugged. “His group had only been here a couple of weeks; that’s why we were all so impressed. We—the rest of the section—had been here a few months longer, but we were still getting used to it all.”

A couple of weeks at a Main Dressing Station wasn’t _nearly_ enough time to have become so thoroughly inured to horror. A couple of weeks in France, and their group—Fitz included—were still cringing at the messier dressing changes. It took time to learn how to switch off the human part of you, and just see the problem to be handled and not the pity of it. 

Rawlins continued, “And, I mean, he wasn’t doing it to show off—the rest of us wouldn’t have even known about it if Manning hadn’t told us. It was the same way when he brought Lamb in from no-man’s land—did he tell you about that?”

Rouse shook his head, and Rawlins went on to explain how, on his first night under heavy fire, Barrow brought another man from their section in from no-man’s land, after a Corporal from their unit refused to do it. “Any of us would have bragged about it, but he barely mentioned it—I had to get the story from Jessop. Barrow said he was scared, doing it, but you wouldn’t have known it to look at him—and it was maybe an hour later, that we talked.” 

And a couple of months later, when he’d been at the Front with Rouse, he’d been scrambling up into no-man’s land like he’d been born doing it, and coming back perfectly cool and collected. “He did a lot of that, when we were at the Front.” More than his share, really—Farlow and Padgett, the two older blokes who’d come from Rouse’s station, were perfectly happy to leave that sort of thing to the young bucks. 

“He’s tough,” said Rawlins. 

He was, but that wasn’t the point Rouse was groping his way towards. “You do much field triage?”

Rawlins shuddered a little. “Not much. Mostly the sergeants do that, if an MO isn’t available.”

“If you’re at an Aid Post, everybody does it. We’re not supposed to, of course. But if a patrol gets hit—shelled, machine-gunned, whatever—you can’t go out with ten or twenty stretcher bearers all at once, just in case they’re all alive. You take maybe half a dozen, from the regiment, and one of us to run the show. So you get there and there’s four blokes, or six, still alive. And you have to decide who you bring home, while their mates sit there and look at you.”

“I can hardly imagine,” Rawlins said.

“No, you can’t,” Rouse agreed. “But Barrow…doesn’t turn a hair. He had one where the officer from the patrol—a right cunt—was banging on about how it was Barrow’s fault this other bloke ended up dead. One he didn’t bring in, I mean. Once it was all over, we—the MO, and the Corporal, and me—were trying to, you know, reassure him he’d made the right call. And he was just….” He’d seemed miles away—but not anywhere better than where he actually was. “I don’t think he understood why we were still talking about it.” 

Rawlins shifted uncomfortably on the step, and lit a cigarette. “What are you saying?”

“I don’t know.” What _was_ he saying? “I’m saying that kind of shit is a heavy load to carry. And the thing about a heavy load is that if you’ve got it balanced right, you can carry it for a long time. But the only way it ever gets any lighter is if you put it down and look at it. Pass some of the pieces off to somebody else. Chuck out the bits you don’t need. You know what I mean?”

Rawlins nodded slowly. “I think so. And the _Huntley_ has, er, unbalanced the load.”

Rouse had almost forgotten about the _Huntley,_ and why they’d started talking about this to begin with. “Exactly. They were close—they were only half-brothers, but Fitz said they were the only family each other hand. Fitz talked about him all the time, got two or three letters a week from him. And now he’s dead, and Barrow can’t stand to hear his name.” 

“So…what do we do?” asked Rawlins.

“Buggered if I know,” Rouse admitted. 

That was when the door creaked open, and Barrow came out. He was wearing Rouse’s coat—much too short on him—and had his feet stuffed into unlaced boots. “You have my cigarettes,” he said accusingly.

Rouse fished them out of his pocket—Barrow’s pocket—and handed them to him. 

Barrow lit one, and said, “Shove over,” squeezing onto Rawlins’s step. “What are you two doing out here?”

There wasn’t much point in lying, was there? “Talking about you,” Rouse said.

“I’m fine,” said Barrow. “Except that somebody nicked my cigarettes.”

“You left them in the mess,” Rouse told him. “Along with your coat.”

Barrow looked down at the coat he was wearing. “Oh.” 

Maybe he was loosened up _now_ —the fact that he was wearing a coat that didn’t fit wasn’t the sort of thing Barrow would miss, in his usual state. Rouse tested the theory by saying, “I was telling Rawlins about Fitz.”

Barrow didn’t run away, or even tell him to fuck off. “Would it do any good at all,” he said tiredly, “to remind you that I don’t want to talk about it?”

“Nope,” Rouse said. 

Barrow rested his head on Rawlins’s shoulder. “Of course it reminded me of…everything. But I’m fine. It just took me by surprise, is all.”

“Things are gonna remind you of it,” Rouse said. “You’ve got to….” Rouse had started that sentence without knowing how he was going to finish it, but he was, after all, extremely bright, and every once in a while, things came together for him at just the right moment. “What you’ve got to do is _practice_ being reminded of it.” If there was one thing he’d learned from their week of drill and inspection hell, it was that Barrow believed in practicing. “Get used to thinking about him, and keeping your shit together.”

For a long time, Barrow didn’t say anything, and Rouse wondered if he’d fallen asleep again—and if so, whether he and Rawlins could get him inside and put him to bed without everyone in the platoon waking up and asking questions. Finally, though, he took a drag off his cigarette and said, “Maybe.” A moment later, he said, “It’s funny. I don’t even remember reading the telegram. I remember getting it—opening the door for it. And then Anna was crying. That was strange, ‘cause she only met him once. And then I was screaming at his lordship like a fishwife—I still can’t believe I didn’t get sacked on the spot for that.” He lit another cigarette. “It was like that tonight. Blythe said something about the _Albion_ , and that other ship—what was it called?”

“The _Huntley_ ,” said Rawlins. 

“The _Huntley_ ,” Barrow repeated. “And then I was outside being sick, and then Rouse was putting me to bed.” 

“That happens,” said Rouse. 

“Yeah?” Barrow said. “I wondered if I was losing it, a bit.”

“Nah. ‘slike how a lot of the wounded don’t remember how they got hurt,” Rouse said. “You get it in mining accidents, too—me dad had a tunnel collapse on him once. All he remembers is the timbers creaking, and then he was topside drinking a cuppa. He said he figured he was knocked out and his mates dragged him out—but they said he was fine, talking and everything the whole time.” 

“Huh,” said Barrow. 

“Tell us something about him,” Rouse suggested. “Fitz, I mean. When he was alive.”

Barrow took a deep drag from his cigarette. Rouse suspected he was deciding whether to tell him to fuck off or not. Finally, he said, “Like what?”

“I don’t know. Something from when you were kids.” 

Barrow made a small sound of amusement at that. “He used to do up my tie for me. When we were working for Lady Waterstone. We wore white ties with our livery, and I couldn’t get it right. It took me about a month to get the hang of it, and until I did, he fixed it for me every day.”

That sounded like Fitz, all right. “He used to help us with our uniforms,” Rouse said. “Back in training, when we had inspections.”

“Like you do for us,” Rawlins said.

Barrow nodded, turning his cigarette lighter over in his hand. “Everything I’ve ever done right, you can figure Peter had something to do with it.” He shoved his lighter in his pocket and swiped angrily at his eyes. “Fuck.”

“You’re all right,” Rouse said, mildly. 

Barrow took a deep, shuddering breath. “Yeah. I’m all right. I have to be.”

That wasn’t exactly what Rouse had meant, but he couldn’t argue with it, either. There was a war on, and Barrow did have to be all right—even if he wasn’t. 

**#**

“Aren’t you going to _open_ it?” Rawlins asked, leaning on Thomas’s shoulder. Since that embarrassing evening a few days ago, when Thomas had more or less cuddled up to him on the steps of the barracks, he seemed to have decided that Thomas liked that sort of thing. 

Thomas knew he ought to shrug him off—somebody was bound to get the wrong idea—but the truth was, he’d sort of got used to it, back when they’d had to huddle together in the barn to keep from freezing to death in their sleep. He didn’t know what to do with himself anymore, having a bed all to himself. 

“I already know what’s in it,” he said. It was Christmas Eve, and they were in the guardhouse again. “Tea, cigarettes, biscuits. Gloves if I’m lucky.” He had said gloves, when Anna asked if there was anything he wanted. 

“Why do they send you cigarettes, anyway? Don’t they know you can get them here?”

Thomas had been very carefully not thinking about why they sent him cigarettes, but Rouse had a point, about practicing. “I used to send them to Peter,” he said, and did not cry. “It was, um…sort of an inside joke we had, but I never said, so I expect they think I want them.” He did not, in fact, care whether he got his cigarettes from the village shop in Downton, or bought them at the YMCA hut, or helped himself from the crates of them that were kept on hand for patients. 

“Oh, well,” Rawlins said. “I suppose it’s the thought that counts.”

It was awfully decent of them to send him parcels at all; it wasn’t like he’d be getting any if they didn’t. “I suppose.” 

Since it seemed Rawlins wasn’t going to shut up about it, Thomas opened the parcel. He saw right away that he’d been wrong about the contents: instead of biscuits, it contained a large Christmas cake in a tin. Rawlins was already reaching for it, but Thomas closed the tin, saying, “We’ll have it tomorrow, before we go on wards.” They had been informed a little while ago that their part in the Yuletide festivities would be to cover the wards while the nurses gave their concert. Thomas didn’t mind, but some of the others were a bit put out.

“Good idea,” Rawlins said. “I have a few mince pies left, and I’m sure the others have things, too.”

Thomas hadn’t been picturing a proper spread, but he shrugged and moved on. There were, however, cigarettes and tea. In addition to the shilling’s worth of Fortnum’s Superior, there was a smaller packet, which Thomas opened and sniffed, finding a familiar smoky tang.

“What’s what?” Rawlins asked.

“House blend,” Thomas answered. They drank it downstairs on Christmas.

Rawlins frowned. “Two parts standard issue and one part Fortnum’s Superior?” 

That was what they drank in the barracks—or, before that, in the barn. Everybody took turns getting the Fortnum’s from home. Thomas had, once or twice, jokingly called it their house blend. “The Earl of Grantham’s house blend,” he explained. “It used to come from the tea plantations they had, in Ceylon and so on, but now Fortnum’s just does it up for them.” Carson had explained it once. 

“You mean,” Rawlins said slowly, “there’s actually such a thing as a house blend? I thought that was a joke.”

“Ours is a joke,” Thomas said. “We can have this for our Christmas tea, too.” Setting the tea aside, he rummaged in the box and found a flat, squishy object, wrapped in brown paper. He hoped it might be his gloves, but a note written on the paper, saying “I made these! --Daisy,” suggested otherwise. 

He opened it. Socks. Well, those always came in handy—although, unlike gloves, there was nothing wrong with the ones they issued you. 

But there were more squishy objects, which Thomas had taken at first to be packing paper. One was a scarf, made by Anna, and knit in a pattern of interlocking squares—much more complicated that another scarf that Thomas did his best not to think about. The other was a pair of rather good leather dress gloves. It was going be a real shame to ruin them doing outdoors work in the rain. 

Under all that was an envelope, containing a postal order for a week’s wages—the usual Christmas gift from his lordship and her ladyship. He wasn’t sure why he was getting it, when he didn’t work there anymore, but he wasn’t complaining. 

#

_December 25, 1915_

_Dear Mrs. Hughes,_

_Thank you and everyone for the parcel—it did get here just in time. The gloves are just what I needed. The ones they issue us are wool, and once they get wet, they’re worse than nothing._

_We did have a fairly good Christmas, but before I can tell you about that, I have to explain that I’ve been seconded again, this time along with my entire section, to a Casualty Clearing Station. That’s a bit further behind the lines than a Dressing Station, at the edge of what they call the fighting zone. The CCS’s job is to sort out which cases need to be sent on to the Base Hospitals by the channel for long-term treatment, and to treat the ones that can go back on duty within a few weeks. They have us doing mostly donkey-work at the moment, but we are out of the barn and into a nice, snug barracks, so that’s all right. I was also made up to corporal, because they needed one to send with the section._

_Being the new men here, they had us covering the wards while the Christmas festivities went on, but we had our own party in our barracks beforehand. Most of the lads shared out things they’d gotten from home, and I contributed Mrs. Patmore’s Christmas cake. Then when we were on the wards, the nurses came round singing carols—they’d done a concert, too, for the patients who were able to get out of bed, but we had to work, during that. We also had to work during Christmas dinner—there was turkey and all the usual things—but someone thought to put some aside for us, so once we found that out, there was a great deal less grumbling. After all, you can’t leave the patients on their own while the entire staff is off celebrating._

_It’s rather late now, and we’re expected to be up at the usual time tomorrow, Boxing Day or not, so I will close._

_Happy Christmas,_

_Thomas_

Finishing the letter, Thomas stuck it in the envelope and put on his coat to take it out and mail it. It _was_ late, but the barracks hadn’t quite settled down yet. A number of the lads—especially the younger ones—were still busy eating sweets, and swapping things they’d gotten out of Christmas crackers and the little paper bags of sweets and trinkets that some charity or another had sent over. 

Thomas had gotten a silver-colored fountain pen; he’d tried writing his letter with it, but it leaked so badly he gave it up and went back to his old one. 

The youngsters at the front of the barracks—Blythe and Lyton’s sections—quieted down a bit at the sight of him. They were a little in awe of what they saw as the grizzled veterans of the other two sections—and of Thomas and Rouse in particular. 

Thomas did not much mind, though he did not feel that they had entirely earned the right to copy his own section in calling him the Magnificent Bastard. 

It was a cold, clear night, with a nearly-full moon shining overhead, and the frozen ground crunching under his feet as he walked to the post-box. A sniper’s moon, they called it now, and you didn’t want to be out in no-man’s land under one of those. 

One of the men on the ward that afternoon had talked about taking part in the Christmas Truce last year. His regiment hadn’t actually gone out into no-man’s land to fraternize, as some units had, but they’d sung carols across it, he said, and used dud shells to send over some gingerbread and plum pudding, getting some kind of German Christmas-cake in return. 

Orders this year were that there was to be no repeat of this dangerously un-military behavior; if Fritz came out of his trench, singing carols and bearing Christmas cake, he was to be mowed down like any other day. Thomas wondered if anyone had actually had to do it. 

Probably the German GHQ had handed down similar instructions, and no bugger had been fool enough to try any peace-on-Earth, good-will-to-men shit. 

After putting his letter in the box, Thomas lit a cigarette for the walk back. For a change, he let himself remember, just for a moment, that it was Peter lighting it for him. His eyes stung a bit, but it _was_ a cold night, and he was walking into the wind. 

When he got back to the barracks, Rawlins was sitting on the steps, smoking his pipe. It had been a long time since Thomas had seen him do that—most of the pipe smokers had switched to cigarettes; they were so much easier—but perhaps he’d gotten pipe tobacco in his Christmas parcel.

Rawlins shifted to one side of the step, making room for Thomas, and Thomas sat down next to him. “I wonder what they’re doing at home,” he said.

For a moment, Thomas thought of the 47th—where they were probably doing much the same thing as here, except without the singing nurses. But Rawlins would mean his family’s home, back in Blighty. “Getting ready for bed, I should think. If they’re not already in it.”

Rawlins huffed. “I didn’t necessarily mean right this minute.” He pressed his shoulder against Thomas’s. “It’s strange, thinking that back home, everything’s just the same as it always was.”

“Except that most of the men our age are gone,” Thomas pointed out. 

“True,” said Rawlins. “My father says they’ve had to start hiring women to work on the production line—and it’ll get worse once they start calling people up under the Derby scheme. Paper-making isn’t a starred occupation.”

“You’d almost think it would be, with all the forms we have to fill out.” That was one of the things they didn’t tell you about being a Corporal—you had to do everything the others did, plus fill out forms about it. “You don’t have any brothers of Army age, do you?” Rouse, he knew, was relieved to find coal-mining on the list of occupations essential to the war effort—his brothers and cousins wouldn’t be called up.

“No, he’s fourteen,” Rawlins said. “Thank God.”

Four years until he was old enough to be called up, and one more until he could be sent overseas. “You think it’ll be over by then?”

“Can’t go on forever,” Rawlins pointed out.

Thomas wasn’t so sure—after all, the lines were almost exactly where they’d been this time last year. He shrugged. “Maybe not.” 

“It’s hard to imagine what it’ll be like, though. Going home.” 

Thomas shook his head. He couldn’t imagine it either, and didn’t really want to try. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Historical note 1: By the end of 1916, centers for treating mild cases of shell shock (or "psychiatric casualties," or "nervous disorders") in the combat zone had been established throughout the British Army Areas, and they operated along the lines described here. My research didn't turn up any information about where and when the RAMC _began_ this practice. I envision the 14th CCS as a sort of pilot project for the system that would be in place a year later, but I have no particular reason to believe that there _was_ such a pilot project, except that it would make sense for the method to have been tested on a small scale prior to implementing it along the entire British section of the Front. 
> 
> Historical note 2: Treatment of psychiatric casualties (as they were known) in the Great War was aimed at getting the men back to the firing line as quickly as possible—not their long-term mental health. In essence, they were taught to more effectively repress their trauma, or to adopt coping strategies compatible with combat, such as suicidal recklessness, emotional detachment and dissociation, or numb obedience. These coping strategies are now understood to be symptoms, not a cure. 
> 
> These priorities were laid down by the high command, and military doctors complied with them for a variety of reasons, of which the more sympathetic include the naïve belief that the patients’ problems would go away on their own once the war was over, and the understanding that this form of treatment was at least more humane than having the men punished as malingerers (or worse, shot as cowards.) 
> 
> In the story, Thomas sees no problem with this treatment method, because as far as he can tell, the aforementioned unhealthy coping strategies have been working great for him.  
> If you’re struggling with mental health, don’t try to cure it with yard work and pretending nothing’s wrong, is what I’m saying.


	12. Interlude:  The Peter Letters, Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter, still a prisoner of war, writes some more letters.

_5 October, 1915_

_It is now a year to the day since I left England—not counting carrying patients off the Albion on its last successful voyage—and I am very reflective. (I suppose I ought to have been on August 4, but all of us studiously avoided the subject on that day—except for the French, who had nothing to avoid, having studiously ignored their own anniversary several days earlier.) It’s been quite a journey, from base hospital, to within shouting distance of the Front, to the hospital ship, to a U-Boat, to the prisoners’ camp, to here. I can’t say that much of it is what I expected, when we were on the way to Kew, talking about what we’d do in the war. (Or was it on the way back? I know it was on the tram, with you and Lisel and Anna.) The hospital bit, I suppose I could have predicted, but certainly not the rest of it. _

_Though in a way, I am more-or-less doing what I thought—tending patients, in a civilian hospital converted to military use. I just thought it would be in London!_

_We have recently gotten some new patients—combat wounds, newly captured. They tell us that there was a “big push” not long ago, which had the oracles at home in high anticipation of a victory by November. It did not go well. (You probably know more about it than I do, having access to English newspapers. We are not even supposed to see German ones, although sometimes we do.)_

_Some of the German workers are being irritatingly smug about it—I suppose I can’t blame them, except that one of them is the old charwoman whose grandchild I have been supplying with milk from my parcels. She has betrayed me, and will have no more milk from this man’s parcels, I tell you! (Or perhaps she will—I went on strike from giving her milk once before, when she was unpleasant on the subject of the Russian Retreat, but relented when she brought the child in to show me.)_

_Missing you. I’ve lost my cigarette case—I think one of the German orderlies nicked it—but I still think of you whenever I smoke._

_11 November, 1915_

_Feeling glum, for no particular reason. (Besides the obvious.) The hospital routine is very wearying—not the work, which is fairly light at the moment, but the on-and-on-ness of it. I suppose you know the feeling—it’s not too different from what we always disliked about being in service; the feeling that nothing you’re doing really matters. (Here, we do manage to make sick and injured people better, sometimes, but you’re just sending them back to the same prison camp where they got sick or hurt to begin with, and another one takes their place right away, so it doesn’t feel like you’re accomplishing much—although I suppose the patients see it differently!)_

_I wish I knew how much longer the war would go on. If I could count down, each day I get through is one day closer to home, I might feel better._

_Perhaps not, though—after all, each day I get through is one day closer to home, even though I don’t know how many more I’ve got ahead of me. _

_Jean-Michel is getting a card game together. I’m sure he’s trying to cheer me up—it won’t work, but I suppose I should make an effort._

_Missing you more than I can stand,_

_Your Peter_

_25 December, 1915_

_Happy Christmas, dearest! You wouldn’t think it possible to have a decent Christmas in a prisoner-of-war hospital, but they’ve really made an effort. We were allowed out of the hospital—for the first time since we got here—to go to a Midnight service. (It was a Catholic one, and arranged for the French MO and orderlies, but most of us went.) I can’t tell you how it cheered me to see the open sky. There was a very-nearly-full moon—hello, moon! I hope you happen to have looked up and seen it, tonight._

_On Christmas Day, there was an extra distribution of parcels, followed by a visit from the inmates of a German orphanage, who carried in a Christmas tree and sang to us. You will probably have noticed right away that this was timed perfectly to oblige us to give the children sweets out of our parcels—sweets are terribly hard to get, in Germany right now—but I don’t really mind. Most of us, I think, were quite glad to be able to contribute to a happy Christmas for those even less fortunate than ourselves. (And the orphans probably felt the same way, about us.) I wish we’d been given some warning, though—we could have come up with some kind of entertainment for them. (One of the patients managed some shadow puppets; that was about it.)_

_For Christmas lunch, the Red Cross ladies organized some roast chicken—God knows how; most Germans are eating horsemeat and being grateful for it—and apologized for it not being turkey. It was mainly for the patients, of course, but we each got a bit of it, and as I write this the bones are simmering over the spirit stove in our orderlies’ room—Jean-Michel has promised us a delicious soup tomorrow, made with black-market carrots and turnips, and rice from our parcels._

_In addition to parcels, I also had a few personal presents. Capt. K. has given me his copy of the new Sherlock Holmes book—on the condition that I let him borrow it back once I’ve read it. (He got a large parcel of books, assembled by his various relations. This particular one is from a brother-in-law he doesn’t like very much, and so has no sentimental associations, although he is keen to read it.) The other orderlies clubbed together to obtain for me a black-market razor, which I needed badly, and a patient, moved by my parcel-less plight, gave me an adventure novel by someone I’ve never heard of._

_(Please do not think that I am reproaching you for not sending parcels—I can think of many reasons why this may be, and none of them are that you “don’t love me no more.” Perhaps the Red Cross has failed to adequately inform you that I am, in fact, allowed to receive them. Perhaps you have sent them, and each one has been lost or stolen on its way here, or the Red Cross has been delivering them somewhere else. Perhaps you’ve joined up, and are currently situated as a recipient, rather than sender, of parcels. (Perhaps, though I try not to think it, something has happened to you.) In any case, I am entirely sure that you would be sending parcels if you could. In fact, shall I tell you a secret? Sometimes when I get the “Any RAMC Prisoner” ones, I imagine that you have sent some. Perhaps not the ones I personally receive—that would be a coincidence too great for words—but I somehow feel that, if you did not know that you could send them to me, you might cast bread upon the waters in this way.)_

_And now I have made myself sad, so I shall hurry on to talk about my final and most surprising present, which was from my charwoman friend—she of the milk-loving grandchild. (I did resume giving it to her, after all.) It is a gray jumper, which she claims to have knitted personally, with me in mind. I doubt this very much—for one thing, it has a musty aroma suggestive of long storage, and for another, it was plainly made for a man both shorter and wider than I—but I appreciate it nonetheless. Good clothing is growing scarce in Germany—though not so scarce as food—so if she obtained it for me, she must have traded something valuable for it, and if she already had it, she could have traded it for something valuable. (When I say “valuable,” I speak of pre-war valuables: some bit of jewelry, perhaps. If it was a matter of something really valuable, like a pint of milk or a couple of eggs, I’m sure she’d not have given it to me.)_

_It is especially appreciated because my tunic has gone beyond the point of repairs and makeshift reinforcement—you no sooner touch it with a needle than a new hole appears. A couple of weeks ago, a newly-arrived Maj.—a patient, new to both the hospital and to the POW life—reproached me severely for “allowing His Majesty’s uniform to reach such a state.” The MO’s and several long-established patients leapt to my defense, reducing him to an apologetically quivering jelly. (I meant to write you of the incident when it happened, because I knew how much you would enjoy it, but we were quite busy just then.)_

_I hope that you are having a Christmas at least as nice as mine has been, dearest. I am now going to smoke a cigarette from my latest “any prisoner” parcel, and think of you._

_1 January, 1916_

_Well, here’s a turn-up for the books. In my last, I mentioned Maj. D., who was unpleasant about my uniform._

_He has died—infection—and shortly before the end, he ordered me to keep his uniform coat and boots. I attempted to demur, but he woke the patient in the next bed to “witness his verbal last will and testament.” _

_Honestly, it was kind of embarrassing—however, he was just about my size, and though I say it myself, I look very swank in an officer’s coat. It is in very good shape, as his wound was in the leg—a few small bloodstains, is all. The boots are the sort of knee-boots that nobody with a brain in his head wears into the trenches, and I feel a right prat in them, but the coat is definitely a bit of all right. No tailor’s label—which in itself suggests a couple of particularly exclusive shops—and very finely made. Officers’ uniforms are always made of much better cloth than ours, but this is really top-drawer._

_I have taken off all of the late Maj.’s badges and insignia and replaced them with my own, which I hope will satisfy the War Office that I am not impersonating an officer, in the event we are suddenly and dramatically liberated._

_(I probably should feel worse than I do, about the fact he had to die for me to have it, but I can’t tell you how much it has improved my outlook on life, to have something to wear that doesn’t belong in a rag-bag.)_

_Love,_

_Your devastatingly handsome Peter_

_28 January, 1916_

_Very worried for you. Papers full of the news that England has begun conscription. (They give us newspapers now, printed in English and French by the Germans, for distribution to prisoners. Meant to demoralize, of course, so it’s hard to know which parts are true.) They say that this indicates that the “fighting spirit of the English has been broken,” though what that means about the fighting spirit of Germany, which has had conscription throughout, I’m sure I can’t say._

_I am surprised, though, given the number of enthusiastic volunteers at the start of the war. The casualty figures in the propaganda papers might be less exaggerated than I hoped, if they’ve run through them all already._

_My dearest—I say this as though you’ll read it in time to do any good—do everything you can to get into a “safe” spot. General staff, if you can manage it—they stay far behind the lines, and need people to fetch and carry for them. Try sucking up to Lord G. If you can’t wangle that, try for the RAMC—my experience aside, the odds are much better than in the infantry. I don’t know how I’d stand it if, when I finally get to come back to England, you’d been killed. Stay safe. Please. _

_I shall light a cigarette for you this time, as I am so very worried. _


	13. Chapter 10: January-March, 1916

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas's commitment to keeping his head down is challenged when one of his friends disagrees with the Medical Officer about a patient's treatment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Notes: Medical gore, psychiatric malpractice. (See endnotes for further, spoilery details.)

In the new year, they started getting regular ward work—every other week, usually, with the alternate ones spent on fatigues and so forth with the shell shock patients. They were most often assigned to the shell shock wards—Major Winthrop, who was in charge of the psychiatric section, apparently believed women were a bad influence on the barmy. But there wasn’t nearly enough work on those wards to occupy them all—the men being expected to make their own beds, clean the barracks, and so on, as they recovered—so members of Thomas’s section were often peeled off in ones and twos to assist on other wards, and he had many occasions to repeat the lecture about the treatment of and attitudes toward nurses.

Fatigues with the twitchy blokes were an exercise in Sisyphean frustration, because as soon as any one of them had improved enough to be reliable, he was sent back to the Front. It was much rarer for anyone to be sent on to the specialist hospital in England, even if he got steadily worse. 

So Thomas was a bit surprised when, one day in February, Rouse—who was on wards that week—came up to his work detail and told a bloke called Simmons to go back to the ward and pack his kit for Blighty. 

“What are they taking him for?” Thomas asked, when Simmons was out of earshot. “He’s one of me best workers.”

Rouse stared at him. “He thinks he’s _dead_ , mate.”

Thomas knew that—Simmons didn’t mind talking about it. He had, apparently, been on a patrol which was struck by a shrapnel shell. All of the other blokes had be killed, most of them instantly, so Simmons—somehow left without a mark on him—had come to the reasonable-enough conclusion that he was also dead. “So?” It wasn’t like it stopped him working; plenty of others got sent back to the Front when they still claimed to be quite poor in their nerves, as long as they could stand up straight and carry out their duties. 

“He’s completely off his rocker,” Rouse said. 

“So’s half the General Staff,” Thomas pointed out. “Anyway, he’s keen to get back to the fighting—says he might as well, since they can’t kill him again.”

“But they can, because he’s _not dead_.”

“I know, but neither are any of the others. I don’t see how it makes sense to send back the ones that don’t want to go, and send home the one that does.” 

Rouse hesitated. “Well, when you put it like that, I guess….”

Thomas shrugged, and said, “Better get back to it.” They were digging graves that day—they didn’t need them just yet, but they were having an early thaw, and someone or another had decided they might as well get some done, before the ground froze again. It was surprisingly sensible, he thought, especially considering the idea must have come from an officer.

The next week, he was back on wards—D-7, this time, which was for men with both shell shock and wounds. It was a bit more interesting than the other shell-shock wards, because there was medical work to do, dressing changes and so on. He had just finished one, and was carrying the soiled bandages to the bin when someone said, “ _Thomas_?”

It had been so long since he’d heard his Christian name spoken aloud that his first thought was that they must have a patient with the surname “Thomas.” But he looked anyway, and saw—“ _Theo_?” It was Theo, thinner than Thomas had ever seen him, his face covered in a day or two’s worth of stubble. “Christ. What are you doing here?”

“What do you think?” Theo asked. “I caught a packet, and I’ve gone a bit barmy.”

Well, yes, of course.

“I wasn’t sure you were still alive,” Theo added.

“I wasn’t sure you were, either.” He held up the basin of bandages. “Let me get rid of these, and then I’ve got one or two others to do, and then we’ll talk, all right?”

“I’ll be here,” Theo said.

When Thomas consulted the list for dressing changes, he found that Theo was, in fact, on it—the surname hadn’t registered; it wasn’t an unusual one. He gave the couple of patients above Theo on the list to Rawlins and Perkins, and took Theo’s case for himself. 

It was a thigh wound, and healing nicely, with just a tiny bit of inflammation. “Doesn’t look too bad,” Thomas observed.

“No,” Theo said. “To be honest, when I got it I was rather hoping it would be a Blighty one. But no such luck.”

“No,” Thomas agreed, sloshing in some disinfectant.

“Ah! Do you have to use quite so much of that stuff? It hurts like a bugger.”

“I don’t know—do you want to keep your leg?”

“Hm,” said Theo. “That’s a tough one.” 

Thomas was not _entirely_ sure that he was joking. “Best if you do,” he said. “They say it’s not too bad having a wooden leg from the knee down, but above the knee is a lot harder.” 

“Oh, all right.” Theo went on to catch him up on a few other members of their circle that he knew to still be alive. Drew, apparently, had lost both hands—he’d been an artilleryman; there were all sorts of ways for that to happen—and been sent home to live with his married sister. “I’ve no idea how he’s really doing—she writes his letters for him, so all he said was that he’d arrived and they were taking good care of him.” Reg was in a unit fighting in one of the side-shows, down by Turkey, and had been doing all right the last time Theo had heard. “He was in Flanders before, says it’s not nearly as bad where he is now.”

There were, of course, a lot more names that neither of them mentioned. 

“What about you?” Theo asked. “Are you doing all right?”

“Oh, sure. It’s pretty cushy, here.” Thomas hesitated. “You?” It was, in a way, a stupid question—obviously he wasn’t all right, or he wouldn’t be here.

“Not as bad as some,” Theo answered. “I’m having a lot of trouble sleeping. Bad dreams. I expect they sent me down here so I’d stop waking everyone else up.”

Thomas nodded. “That’s common enough, here.”

“I really haven’t gotten over Syl,” Theo went on. “That was so…I’m still carrying around his stupid fucking lip rouge. That’s the other thing I thought, when I got shot this time. That if they sent me to the same place as last time, I could finally give it to him. Leave it on his grave.”

“Mm,” Thomas said, nodding. What were you supposed to say, about something like that?

“I hung on to his stockings for a while, too, but we ended up using those to strain the mud out of drinking water. Had to make up a story about buying them to send home to a girl.”

That reminded Thomas of something. “If you talk to any of the other blokes here, Peter’s meant to be my brother. Rouse—the corporal from one of the other sections—knew him. So, you know. Might come up.”

Theo nodded. “I’ll remember. Christ. Peter. That was awful, too. I didn’t really…I mean, it happened about the same time as Syl, so I didn’t…you joined up right after that, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. Seemed like the thing to do.”

“I suppose. That was…you and him…that would have been good. For both of you.”

“Don’t,” said Thomas. “I can’t.” He could think about Peter, a bit, now. But he couldn’t think about what they could have had.

“Sorry,” said Theo. 

“It’s all right,” Thomas said. “It’s just…I’m working, you know.”

“I understand. Do you need to get back to it?”

He wanted to, but there wasn’t really anything he needed to be doing at the moment. “Not just yet.” He set the basin of soiled bandages on the floor and lit a cigarette, offering the packet to Theo.

“Ta.” Theo took one, and Thomas lit it for him. “What’s it like here?”

Glad for an impersonal subject to discuss, Thomas told him a bit about the ward routines, adding, “If they decide you’re still barmy after your leg’s better, they’ll have you out doing fatigues. It’s part of the cure.”

“How jolly,” said Theo. 

“It’s not so bad. My section runs some of the work details, when we’re not on duty in here.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine. And if I don’t feel up to buttling again after the war, I’ll be ideally positioned to begin a new career as a ditch-digger.” 

“There’s an idea.” Thomas hadn’t given a moment’s thought, since joining the Army, to what he’d do for work if the war ever ended. How likely was it that they’d want him back, at the Abbey? “I’ll be the foreman—I’m good at that now.”

“You can have it,” Theo agreed. “I think my trouble sleeping started when they made me a sergeant.” 

“Oh—they did?” With Theo dressed in hospital pyjamas, there was no way to tell, and he’d missed noticing it on the patient list.

Theo nodded. “A couple of months ago. I get these dreams, where it’s all of us from the old days…the old days of a year and a half ago…and we’re on a patrol, and…ugh. Sometimes we’re trying to get to the Criterion, only it’s on the other side of no-man’s land, and I get there, and I’m the only one left.” He managed a weak smile. “Perhaps seeing you will help with that—I’ll imagine that you’re already inside.”

“You, me, and Philip Crowborough,” Thomas said. 

“You’ve seen him?” Theo asked.

“God no. He’s staying home—heart condition, supposedly. He wrote me, just before…you know, to tell me somebody or other had been killed, and he mentioned it.” 

“Oh,” said Theo. “Well, that’s cozy. Perhaps I could be his butler, and you can be his valet, when we’re the only three of our sort left alive.”

“Could we dig ditches instead?” Thomas asked.

“Let’s do,” Theo agreed. 

A bit after that, Major Winthrop came in on rounds, and Thomas really did have to get back to work. 

Over the next few days, Thomas talked to Theo when he could. It was hard going, because Theo tended to focus on his nightmares, how wretched he felt over Syl and Peter and all the others, and half-baked plans for after the war—none of which were subjects Thomas wanted to talk about it. Also troubling was the way he rambled from one of these topics to another and back again. He’d always been a chatty sort of bloke, but he’d never been scatterbrained. Now he seemed to lose track of what he’d been talking about from one moment to the next, let alone which pieces of news he’d already told Thomas. 

So when, one night, he was having a midnight cigarette on the steps, and Rouse turned up—he was on night duty, in the wards—and said, “Barrow—can you come over to the ward for a minute?”, Thomas’s first thought was that something had happened to Theo.

He stood up. “What happened? Is it Theo—uh, Sergeant Hill?”

“What? Oh, that mate of yours. No, I’m in D-5 tonight.”

“What is it, then?” Thomas asked, starting on the path toward the D wards. If it _wasn’t_ Theo, he couldn’t think what sort of emergency would call for him, and not, say, one of the medical officers.

“Since you’re up, I wondered if you could keep an eye on things for a bit,” Rouse explained. 

“While you do what?” Thomas asked. He supposed he could, if it was important, but if Rouse just wanted to go get a drink or something, he was going back to bed. 

“Um….” Rouse said. “Break into the x-ray department.”

“ _What_?”

“You know Kingston?”

Thomas didn’t really keep track of their names, unless he had them on his work crews. “Remind me.”

“Older bloke, short, can’t walk?”

“Oh, him.” The ones that thought they couldn’t walk were a real pain in the arse, because the Major wouldn’t let you bring them bedpans, so there was a lot of completely unnecessary cleaning up to do, in addition to it being embarrassing for all concerned. “Thought he was up and about a bit now, though.” 

“He is. But something’s off—he’s complaining of hip pain, and the thing is, it responds to morphine, and not to sugar pills.”

“You’re not supposed to give them the real stuff for hysterical pain,” Thomas pointed out. 

“I know, but there are some other strange things about the case, too. The gait abnormalities are _not_ what we usually see with hysteria, the pain worsens with activity, and I’d swear there’s some inflammation at the site.”

It took Thomas a moment to realize what he was getting at. “You think there’s actually something wrong with him?”

“With his leg, yeah.”

“Then you should tell one of the MOs.”

“I tried that. Got the brush-off, didn’t I? So I tried giving him the morphine, and it worked. But I can’t admit I did that until I have some kind of proof there’s actually a physical problem.”

“So….?”

“So the easiest way I can prove it is if there’s something on the x-rays that they missed.”

Thomas spotted the flaw in his logic. “You can’t admit you broke into the x-ray department and looked at them,” he pointed out. “What you’ve got to do is get someone to show them to you.” 

“Yeah, that might work if _you_ tried it. McAllister just told me to keep to my own job.”

“Then you should,” Thomas said. If the medical officers said there was nothing wrong with the bloke, that was the end of the story, as far as he was concerned. Rouse didn’t see it that way, though. This wasn’t the first time he’d argued with one of the medical officers about a patient. “You’re going to get in trouble.”

“That’s my look-out,” he said. “C’mon, be a pal.”

Thomas groaned. “If there’s nothing on the x-rays, will you drop it?”

“No,” said Rouse. “Could be a soft-tissue injury. Look, now that he’s getting himself to the latrine, it’s not going to be long before they have him out on fatigues. If he is injured, that could make it a lot worse.”

“And why is that our problem?”

Rouse shot him a look of disgust. “Really? Would you give a shit if it was your mate Hill?”

“That’s a low shot, and you know it.”

“You’re being a bit of a cunt, and you know it.” He paused. “And if you want to talk about low shots….”

“Don’t even say it,” Thomas warned him. Peter would do it. Of course he would. He sighed. “Fine, but if you get caught, I’m saying you told me you were in the latrine with dysentery.”

“Deal,” Rouse said. “Shouldn’t take me more than twenty minutes. Half an hour, tops.”

“Don’t get caught.” 

Thomas sat at the desk in the middle of the ward, idly looking over Rouse’s paperwork. He was none too thorough about it, and Thomas automatically corrected a few of the more glaring omissions. Honestly, if Rouse wondered why the MOs hadn’t warmed up to him, he ought to try being as diligent about the things he was _supposed_ to do as he was about the things he wasn’t. 

All the while, Thomas was on the alert for a hue and cry from the direction of the x-ray hut. Not, he realized after a bit, that there’d likely be one. The initial assumption, on finding an orderly in the x-ray shed, would be that someone had sent him there for something. It wasn’t until Rouse started running his mouth that he’d get in trouble.

What Thomas really ought to have done was come up with a story for him, about why he was in there. He wasn’t sure what it could be—if they were at the 47th, he could say Captain Allenby had asked for Kingston’s films, with a decent chance he’d back them up, especially if Thomas managed to get to him before anyone asked. Here, though, while the MOs _did_ talk to him a bit more than they did to Rouse—probably because he wasn’t challenging them at every turn, and even when he _did_ think they were being fatheads, he had the sense to hide it—there wasn’t one of them he’d trust to cover for him.

On the other hand, if he was imagining they were at the 47th, he might as well imagine that the Wardmaster knew that Rouse had a bee in his bonnet about Kingston, and had sorted him out already. Quite possibly by giving him a chance to look at the fucking x-rays legitimately. That seemed like something he might do. 

Finally—after closer to three-quarters of an hour than half—Rouse came back. “Did you get caught?” Thomas asked.

Rouse shook his head, and motioned for Thomas to join him in the sink room. “Didn’t find anything,” he said, once they were in there. “The images were bad—I think they just took them to point at and tell the poor bastard there’s nothing wrong with him. There was only one angle on the pelvis, and you could barely see the head of the femur at all. That’s where I think the problem is, so they’re fucking useless.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“Don’t know yet. Any ideas?”

“I already told you what I think,” Thomas reminded him. “It’s not our job to catch things the MOs missed.” If there even was something. 

“This is important,” Rouse said. “They may not care how unwell these men are mentally, when they send them back to the Front, but if he’s injured, they _have_ to care about that.”

There was no point arguing with him, Thomas knew—Rouse was stubborn. So he tried to think of something Rouse could do that wouldn’t get either of them in trouble. But all he could think of were things that might have worked if they were at the 47th. “What about the sergeants? Can you get one of them on your side about this?”

“Chance’d be a fine thing,” said Rouse. “Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not anyone’s favorite around here.”

“Because you’re always arguing with them,” Thomas pointed out. 

“I have to, to get anyone to listen to me.”

Thomas remembered, vaguely, feeling that way. Not arguing—that had never been his style—but maneuvering, always thinking three or four steps ahead, to try and end up where he wanted to be. Life was so much easier, now that he didn’t want things. “I’m out of ideas,” he said. “And if you don’t mind, I’m going to bed.”

Rouse waved him off. “Yeah, sure. Thanks for—” He gestured vaguely toward the ward. “I’ll keep thinking on it.”

Thomas wished he wouldn’t, but didn’t argue.

#

“So you knew Barrow before the war, right?” Private Rawlins asked, laying out the things for changing Theo’s bandage. “What was he like?”

“A lot like he is now,” Theo said. It was strange, really, how little Thomas seemed to have changed. His manners had roughened a bit—he certainly swore more—but under that, he was still the Ice Prince, watching the rest of them from his cold and lonely splendor. 

“Yeah?” said Rawlins, beginning to cut away Theo’s old bandages. “I suppose that’s not surprising. When he first came here, he seemed like he was used to it already, somehow. We all noticed it.”

“I’ve heard the story about the hand,” Theo said dryly. Several times, in fact. It would be surprising, he supposed, to someone who had seen only Thomas’s smooth, polished neatness, or his studied air of not caring about anything or anyone. But it was the same Thomas who had cheerfully beaten the living shit out of a so-called gentleman who had dared force himself on Syl, all those years ago—and then come back to Theo and Peter for patching up, bloodied and disheveled and obviously proud of himself, claiming all the while that he didn’t even _like_ Syl, and that the act had no altruistic motivations whatsoever.

That was the first time he’d done something like that, but it wasn’t the last. He was their Ice Prince, but he was also their battering ram, or their guard dog. Or the old-fashioned kind of prince—the kind that slew dragons. 

“That was something,” Rawlins agreed. “You know, they made him a lance-corporal the first time when he’d been here a _month_? Nobody minded—he’s just that impressive.”

Now that part _was_ surprising. Thomas had always struggled with fitting in—all of their sort were square pegs in round holes, but there wasn’t a space on Earth for the shape Thomas was. He was fairly good at squeezing himself into the spaces where he _almost_ fit—being a servant, drinking at the far end of the Criterion bar—but he resented the hell out of it, and if you looked closely, you could always tell. Combined with his exquisite good looks, that sense of always being a little apart gave him a mysterious allure—but to men who _didn’t_ want to sleep with him, he usually came off as a bit of a prick. 

Here, though, it was different somehow. The men in his section couldn’t possibly _all_ be queers, but Thomas seemed to hold something of the same sort of magnetic fascination for them. Rawlins wasn’t the first to come to him with questions about what their Corporal Barrow was _really_ like. 

At first, Theo hadn’t been able to answer—he’d been too exhausted to think straight—but they’d been giving him something to help him sleep, and now he had a theory. But it wasn’t something you could say to anyone as ordinary as Rawlins—especially not if you were already considered halfway to being mad.

But if Peter were here—if Peter were anywhere to which a letter could be sent—he’d say, _Thomas has always been at war with the world. Here, now—everyone else is, too_. 

The war wasn’t the answer Thomas had been looking for all this time, a space where he would fit—but it was a space nobody else fit, either. Nobody _could_ fit, in a place where sorting through a pile of hacked-off pieces of men’s bodies in search of a wedding ring was a reasonable and even admirable thing to do, or where you were expected, if you got the chance, to walk up to a complete stranger and, without preamble, shove 17 inches of steel into his heart, gut, or eye socket, or where you could be having a cuppa and a smoke and then suddenly be wearing the blood and guts of the man next to you. 

You had to just accept that the world you were in didn’t make any sense, that horrible things happened all the time for no reason, and that there was no getting away from any of it. That adjustment—not how much combat you’d seen, or how many men you’d killed, or how many of your mates you’d seen die—was what marked you as an experienced man, no longer an apprentice of war. As someone who _knows what it’s like_. 

Men like them—London Peculiars, as Peter had put it—had learned a long time ago that the world didn’t make sense, that destruction could crash down from the heavens when you were only trying to have a drink or find some company, and that there was no better world you could escape into. Some of them—Thomas, certainly, and Syl, though in very different ways—had never known the world to be any other way. 

They’d come into the war already equipped with the armor they needed. One of Thomas’s mates—the other corporal, Theo thought—had said that Thomas took to work on the Front as though he had been born to it. That was, quite simply, because he _had_. 

But Rawlins didn’t want to hear any of that. What he wanted to hear was a boys’-school story, perhaps something where Thomas won the big cricket match, or bested the bully. 

Well. He could manage the latter, if he changed a few of the details. What could he say had happened to Syl? He had, in fact, been sacked, in addition to everything else. That would do as a motive. And for a climax, Thomas _had_ gotten Sir Gilbert to hand over the wages he was owed—although that had been an afterthought; the point was to give him enough of a beating he wouldn’t dare show his face in any of their regular haunts again.

“Have you heard the one about the time he beat up the baronet? No? This was when we were all working in London—quite a few years ago. Thomas was about seventeen, I think. Our friend Syl—Sylvester—got sacked, for no very good reason at all….” 

#

“No,” Thomas said. “Absolutely not.”

“There’s nobody else I can ask,” Rouse said. 

“Maybe you should take a hint from that.” Thomas was starting to wonder if Rouse’s fixation with Kingston’s imaginary leg injury was one of those times when he had to, as the Wardmaster put it, pass the shit up the chain before it stuck to him—except that Rouse wasn’t one of his section, and the Wardmaster hadn’t covered what to do if one of your fellow corporals was fucking up.

Thomas had thought, over the last few days, that Rouse might have decided to take his advice and let the matter drop. It turned out, however, that he’d instead been cooking up an even more insane scheme. Namely, breaking into the x-ray department in the middle of the night again, this time bringing Kingston with him and taking some new films of the area where Rouse believed the injury was. What he’d been doing the last few days was enlisting the aid of another corporal, who worked in the x-ray hut and had some idea of how to work the machine and develop the films. 

The part Rouse proposed for Thomas to play was simply to cover the ward again, while Rouse was off executing the _really_ risky parts of the plan, but he still didn’t want to do it. “What if you break the bleeding machine, mucking around with it? I bet that thing costs a fortune—they’ll have your head.”

“It’s not that complicated,” Rouse said. “It’s like a big camera. I understand how it works now.”

“And have you figured out how you’re going to explain these new x-rays—assuming you actually find something on them?”

“If I find something on them, I’ll admit I took them on the sly,” Rouse answered. “If I have proof, they have to believe me.”

That wasn’t the point. “It’s still insubordination. How many times have you been told to stop interfering?” Earlier that day, when Thomas had been working on the ward, Major Winthrop had told Kingston he was to report for fatigues and drill the next day, and Kingston had _argued_ with him, saying that “the young doctor” said he needed more x-rays to diagnose his leg injury. Winthrop, naturally, had demanded to know which doctor that was—and it had eventually emerged that he was talking about Rouse. 

Thomas had sought Rouse out to tell him that the Major was out for his blood, but he had barely mentioned Kingston’s name before Rouse had said yes, he’d already heard, and launched into asking Thomas to help with his plan. “Look,” Thomas said. “I’m not sure you realize what thin fucking ice you’re on with the Major. Did you actually tell Kingston you were a doctor?”

“No,” said Rouse. “I said I was a medical student. Which I am.”

“Not anymore,” said Thomas. “You’re an orderly, same as me, and as far as Major Winthrop’s concerned, you’re _impersonating an officer_. He used those words.”

“It’s not my fault he thinks a doctor and an officer are the same thing.”

“It _doesn’t matter_ whether it’s your fault or not! Christ—what do you think is going to happen here?”

“I think I’m going to find out that Kingston has a femoral head fracture,” Rouse said. “Or possibly a pelvic fracture, but they’re less likely to have missed that. Femoral head fracture causes an apparent shortening of the limb, which can look a lot like the muscle contractures you get with shell shock, and it would have been masked by the initial presentation of hysterical paralysis, but—”

Thomas cut him off. “What do you think is going to happen _to you_? You think they’re going to shake your hand and say, ‘thank you for making us look like idiots; we’ll take you seriously now’?”

“No,” said Rouse. “I expect I’ll get a bollocking. I don’t care.”

“You’ll be lucky if that’s all you get. You want to lose your stripes again?”

Rouse shrugged. “I can live with it. Look, it’ll take _maybe_ an hour. If I get caught, you can tell them I’m in the latrine with the shits, if you want.”

“And you took Kingston with you for company?” 

“No,” said Rouse. “You could say…there’s got to be something you can say.”

Thomas sighed. If he didn’t help, Rouse was just going to do something even stupider—like leave the bloody ward unattended while he went off on his fool’s errand. Or worse, rope one of the other lads into it. “You told me you were taking him to a whorehouse.” Sex was really the best explanation for sneaking around at that hour. It would be even more plausible to suppose that Rouse and Kingston were having it off with each other, rather than bringing a prostitute into it—but that was a crime, too, so he couldn’t admit to knowing that. 

“That’s idiotic,” Rouse said. “Why would I take a man with a broken leg to a whorehouse? He’s not going to be able to get his leg over.” 

“Surely you’ve noticed that we of the other ranks are obsessed with sex. You have a soft spot for the bloke, you thought it would cheer him up a bit. And he hasn’t got a broken leg; he’s just barmy.” Thomas shrugged. “That’s what you told me, and I’m not nearly bright enough to have suspected any differently.”

Rouse sighed. “Fine. Whatever you want to tell them.”

“Be vague, about what you told me,” Thomas said. “We’re obsessed with sex, but we also know you’re not supposed to mention it in front of the quality.” 

When Thomas arrived at ward D-5 in the middle of the night, Rouse already had Kingston bundled up in somebody’s greatcoat and sitting in a Bath chair. “Thought maybe you weren’t coming,” Rouse said.

“I said I would, didn’t I?” Against his better judgment. “Go. Let’s get this idiocy over with.”

Rouse wheeled Kingston out of the ward. Thomas had to help him get the chair down the steps—something that would be very hard to fit into the whorehouse story, if it came to that, but perhaps they wouldn’t think to ask. 

As with the last time, Thomas was left waiting—and worrying—long after the time Rouse had said he’d be back. It was almost two hours—and one nightmare, on the part of Bed 14, who woke up half the ward yelling about it—before the door to the ward opened.

 _Banged_ open, causing half the barmy blokes to jolt awake. Kingston shuffled in, _sans_ Bath chair, accompanied by an officer and two men—neither of whom was Rouse. When they came by the desk, Thomas saw that the officer was Major Winthrop. He ordered Kingston into bed, and the rest of the men back to sleep, and left, without so much as a glance at Thomas.

Fuck. 

No one, as it turned out, thought to ask what Thomas was doing in D-5 that night. As far as he knew, Major Winthrop hadn’t even noticed that he _was_ there. The only one who did notice anything unusual was Lyton, who took over as Ward Corporal in the morning. “Isn’t Rouse on nights this week?” he asked.

“Covering for him,” Thomas said, and raced off to join his own section on sentry duty. 

The others had noticed that Thomas and Rouse were missing when they got up that morning, and were full of questions about it, but seemed no one was much surprised when Thomas didn’t indulge their curiosity, saying only that he’d been covering D-5 for the last few hours of the night shift. 

It wasn’t until they went in to lunch that Thomas learned anything new, and the way he learned it was from Lyton saying, “What’d your mate do to get crucified, anyway?”

“What?” Thomas asked stupidly. 

“Rouse,” Blythe explained. “He’s on F.P. One. I saw them tying him up while we were coming in from fatigues.” 

God _damn_ it. “Insubordination, I reckon,” Thomas said, trying not to show he was rattled. It would be easier if he’d slept, or eaten anything since last night’s dinner. “Has anyone heard how long they gave him?”

No one had, but Lyton said, “Busted him back to the ranks, too.”

“They’d’ve had to,” Thomas said absently. NCOs didn’t get F.P. Fuck. At least no one knew he’d played any part in it. Rouse wouldn’t drop him in the shit. 

“Wonder who they’ll put up to replace him,” Lyton said. “You have any ideas, Barrow?”

“No,” Thomas said, and ate, mechanically, ignoring the churning in his gut. He had an afternoon of fatigues to get through; he couldn’t do it on cigarettes alone.

Their work assignment was mindless, even as fatigues went—unloading building materials at the railhead and carrying them to the place where the E wards were going to be. It didn’t even require breaking them up into working parties—though Thomas did tap Rawlins and Manning to help him keep things organized—and all of the patients were ones they’d had before, except for Kingston. 

It seemed a mercy, right up until the first time they crossed, with Kingston shuffling along under one end of a load of lumber, past the parade ground where Rouse was doing his FP.

They had him tied between two posts, his arms stretched out—that was why they called it crucifixion, when it was done that way. He looked fairly casual about it, almost bored, until he saw them—saw Kingston, to be precise. Then he strained against the ropes holding him, swearing viciously. “God damn you, motherfuckers. You God-damned sons of bitches….”

“Keep walking,” Thomas told the others. “He doesn’t mean us. Just go. Don’t look.”

Any doubts he had about whether the arrangement was pure sadism or just a really unfortunate coincidence were resolved when, on their third or fourth trip back to the railhead for more stuff to carry, they were met by Rouse’s section. The newly-promoted Lance-Corporal Kenyon—a middle-class bloke—explained sheepishly that they’d been told that Thomas would tell them what they were doing.

God-damn motherfuckers, indeed. “It’s easy enough,” Thomas said. “We’re carrying this stuff up to the building site, up past D block.” He hesitated. “Eyes front, when you pass the parade ground, is my recommendation. Don’t make it any worse than it is.”

“Right,” Kenyon said, nodding. “You heard him,” he told the rest of the section. “Let’s get on with it.”

While they were loading up, Thomas heard Plank ask Kenyon, “Weren’t you lot on nights?”

“They took us off it,” Kenyon explained. “Because I’ve no experience leading the section. They said.”

Passing the parade ground, Rouse’s former section _tried_ to keep eyes front, at least, though Thomas caught them sneaking glances at Rouse. Rouse, for his part, managed to keep his mouth shut, and so didn’t make it any worse than it had to be, either.

After they’d put down their loads at the building site, Thomas contrived to fall in beside Kenyon. “Did they tell you how long he’s got?”

Kenyon shook his head. “A week or two, is what we’ve heard.” He hesitated. “I didn’t ask to be put up in his place. I mean—I wouldn’t do that.”

“Didn’t think you had,” Thomas said. They were nearly to the parade ground again. “Eyes _front_ ,” he reminded everyone, then continued, “I told him this was going to happen, if he kept on the way he was.”

“It was….something to do with Kingston, then?”

Thomas nodded. 

After two hours, Rouse was untied and taken somewhere else. Thomas wondered what they had him doing—it was usually either fatigues or pack drill, on F.P.—but mostly, he was relieved not to have to avoid looking at him, for the rest of their work detail. 

He did, however, still have Kingston to deal with. He got slower and slower, and carried less and less, with each trip back and forth. Thomas hadn’t wanted to hassle him, with Rouse forced to watch, but now he started to worry that someone might notice he was going easy on him, and Thomas would end up standing next to Rouse. 

The first time he barked “Keep up!” at Kingston was a bit hard, but it got easier—and never seemed to have much effect, anyway, except to demonstrate to anyone who might have been watching that Thomas was Being Firm. 

And if Kingston was in tears by the end of the work detail, that wasn’t Thomas’s problem, was it?

They had an hour to themselves after work and before dinner, and Thomas—not particularly wanting to watch Kenyon get settled into Rouse’s bunk—went to see Theo. He didn’t need dressings on his leg anymore, and seemed better, mentally—not his old self, but fairly focused, and not talking so much about his nightmares anymore. 

Thomas found himself telling him about Rouse. “I don’t know why he did it. I told him he was going to get in trouble.”

“There’s worse things in life than F.P.,” Theo pointed out. 

“Maybe,” Thomas said. Short of execution, he wasn’t sure what. The very idea gave him the shudders. 

“What they’re putting that poor bugger Kingston through is worse,” Theo said. “He was on drill with us this morning. I don’t know if there’s anything wrong with his leg or not, but it isn’t right to make him walk on it, when it hurts him that much.”

Thomas shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “The doctors know what they’re doing.” 

“I hope you’re right.” He hesitated. “I think they’ll be sending me back to my regiment soon.”

It was not, Thomas thought, a complete change of subject. “Yeah?”

Theo nodded. “Had my little chat with Major Winthrop this afternoon.”

“Little chats” were another part of the treatment regime. Thomas had seen some of them, working on the wards. They consisted mainly of the Major forcing the man to describe whatever terrible thing had happened to him just before his breakdown, then explaining the connection between that experience and the man’s symptoms, and that the terrible thing, while terrible, was a part of war, and wasn’t it really a bit silly to think that, for instance, your hands had stopped working, just because you’d seen someone else get his blown off? At which point the man said Yes, Sir, it was a bit silly, and he’d stop immediately. “What’d he say?”

“He said I’m not having nightmares anymore, so clearly all I needed was a bit of a rest and to stop dwelling on unpleasant things.” 

That didn’t sound _too_ far off to Thomas. “Have you stopped having nightmares?”

“I’ve stopped waking up screaming, so I’m sure that’s the same thing.” Theo shook his head. “I shouldn’t make fun, really. He’s said some helpful things, in our other little chats. I started having the nightmares when I was made sergeant, he says, because I feel responsible for my men, for their safety—which I do—and that feeling that way is part of what makes me a good NCO. I think that’s true, as well.”

Thomas frowned. “So?”

“So it makes me feel a bit better about it, to think that I’m having them because I’m good at my job, and not because I’m falling apart at the seams.” He shrugged. “And then he said I must remember that terrible things happen in war, and it isn’t my job to stop them happening. That part wasn’t so helpful, but there you go.” 

Theo managed something that looked like his old, easy smile, but it made Thomas feel cold inside. “I wish you didn’t have to go back,” he said—a stupid thing to say, really. What good would that do?

“Me, too,” said Theo. “But I do, and I’ll be all right. All the action’s down on the French part of the line now.”

The French were getting torn to shreds, from what Thomas had heard, and the Hun had managed an advance that could be measured in miles—not a lot of miles, maybe two or three, but for the past year, an advance of _yards_ was considered something to write home about. Sooner or later, whether the French stopped them or not, it was bound to affect their sector somehow. But Theo had to know that already, and there was no need to point it out. “Sure,” Thomas said. “I bet it’s nice and quiet.”

The next day, they were on fatigues in the morning. Another thaw had come in, so they were put to digging graves again. The graveyard wasn’t anywhere near the parade-ground, so that was a bit of a relief, but the work was even harder on Kingston than carrying had been. It was the part where you stepped down on the shovel, to use your weight to push it into the ground, that gave him trouble. He couldn’t get his foot up that high, _or_ put his weight on it, no matter how much Thomas yelled at him about it.

So he was doing less than nothing—getting in everyone else’s way, really—when Major Winthrop turned up. He as-you-were’d them quickly, but Thomas scrambled up out of the hole they were digging anyway, and went over to him. “Sir?”

Major Winthrop gave him a highly skeptical look. 

“I’m not sure what to do about him, sir,” Thomas said, inclining his head toward Kingston, who was standing at the edge of the hole and fairly obviously not digging. He was careful to keep his tone apologetic— _I’m trying me best, sir, really I am, it’s just that I’m far too ignorant for this_. “He won’t pick that foot up, no matter what I say to him. Keeping him standing up is about the best I’ve been able to do. Sir.”

Major Winthrop nodded. “It’s a difficult case. And the interference with it certainly hasn’t helped. _Kingston_ ,” he barked.

Kingston, who had already been standing at attention, stood straighter. “Sir.”

“It doesn’t look like you’re doing your part, here. Are you?”

“No, sir.” He gulped. “It’s me leg, sir. I could just about manage the carrying yesterday, but this digging, sir—there’s just no way.”

“We’ve been over this,” the Major said, his voice dripping with patience. “There isn’t anything wrong with your leg, is there?”

“No, sir,” said Kingston, obediently. “It’s all in me head, sir. But it still hurts.”

“You simply have to exercise some will power,” Winthrop said. He held out his hand. “Give me that.”

Cringing a little, Kingston handed him the shovel he’d been holding. Thomas wondered, for a second, if the Major was going to hit him with it. 

Instead, he selected a patch of ground, planted the point of the shovel, placed one mirror-polished riding boot on the step, and pressed down. Thomas wondered if the man had ever, in fact, used a shovel before in his life—he skipped the second part of the procedure, in which one actually lifted up the soil that had been loosened in the first stage—but he supposed that wasn’t really the point. “Do you see how I did that?” Winthrop asked. He demonstrated again. “Now you do it.” He held the shovel out in Kingston’s direction.

Kingston took the shovel and, shifting his weight onto his “good” leg, drove the blade as far into the earth as he could manage with his hands alone. It was actually a bit more than Winthrop had managed using his foot, but Thomas knew perfectly well it wasn’t going to be good enough. 

“Now, now,” said Winthrop. “Do it as I showed you.”

Kingston gave Thomas a baleful look—why him, and not Winthrop, Thomas had no idea. Thomas shrugged minutely. _Sorry, mate—you’re on your own._

Somehow, Kingston got his foot up onto the step of the shovel—helped, perhaps, by the fact that the blade was half-sunk into the ground already. 

“Good,” said Winthrop, encouragingly. “Now put your back into it.”

Kingston gave Thomas another look. “Get on with it,” Thomas told him. 

Kingston took a deep breath, as though he were about to jump over the side of a sinking ship, and put his back into it. 

There was an audible, sickening _snap_ , like a twig breaking, but wetter somehow, followed by a bloodcurdling scream. Kingston was on the ground, and if there hadn’t been anything wrong with his leg _before_ , there definitely was _now_. His trousers were soaked with blood, and when Winthrop—swearing—knelt beside him and pulled the fabric away, Thomas saw a glistening, jagged edge of bone.

“Rawlins,” he heard himself say. “Plank. Go get a stretcher. Quick as you can.” They went. Thomas knelt next to Kingston, opposite Winthrop, who was staring at Kingston’s injury in shock. “Sir. Sir. I’ve sent some of the men for a stretcher. Is there anything else we need?”

“Ah,” said Winthrop. “Ah—no. We should get him to the surgical department as quickly as we can, I should think.”

 _Obviously._ “Yes, sir.” To Kingston, he said, “It’s all right—we’re getting help.”

Kingston nodded, his teeth chattering. Shock, of course. Thomas moved to take off his coat and put it over him, but Major Winthrop managed it first, laying it over the injured man. “Yes,” he said. “We’ll, ah, soon have you patched up. Not to worry.”

Rawlins and Plank came back with the stretcher, and an MO from surgical. They got Kingston loaded up, and Thomas walked back to the surgical hut with them. Winthrop did too, trailing a little distance behind. 

_Your real fucking job_ , the Wardmaster had said, _is to look out for your lads_. _Protect them from the fuckers in the brass hats_. 

Kingston hadn’t been one of his lads when this all started—but he sure as hell was today. That was why he had looked to Thomas for help, when the Major told him to do something he knew would hurt him. Because it was his fucking job.

Christ, no wonder Theo had nightmares. 

Thomas stayed with Kingston as long as the surgical team would let him. While they injected him with morphine, and tetanus antitoxin. While they cut off his clothes, and bathed the wound with antiseptic. While they said _fracture of the femoral head_ and _wasn’t displaced, until he put weight on it_. 

When they took Kingston into theater, and kicked Thomas out, he went back to the outer room, both surprised and not surprised to see Winthrop waiting there. “They say he’ll be all right if it doesn’t get infected,” he said. “But there’s a high risk, when the bone breaks the skin.”

“I know,” Winthrop snapped. He clenched his jaw, breathing through his nose. 

Thomas looked at him for a moment. “I’m going to go tell Rouse,” he said, finally. “Unless you want to do it.” He did not say, _sir_.

“What?”

“Corporal Rouse. He told us this was going to happen. Somebody should tell him he was right.” 

“Private Rouse,” Winthrop corrected. It seemed to be automatic; he winced a little, afterward. “I suppose I….” He changed course abruptly, his tone growing sharper. “There is no reason that anyone would expect me to take any heed of the diagnostic opinions of an _orderly_.”

“Except that he was right,” Thomas said. Then, “Medical student.”

“What?”

“He’s a medical student. And an orderly. Both.”

Winthrop snorted. “A second-year medical student. They all think they know everything.” He shook his head. “I suppose you think I disregarded his opinion out of some sort of class prejudice.”

“Sir,” Thomas said, because there was nothing else to say.

Winthrop looked at him for a long moment, then finally dropped his eyes. “All right,” he said, standing up. “Let’s go and talk to Rouse.”

Mercurial changes of mood and all, Thomas wasn’t sure which way Major Winthrop was going to jump, when they got to Rouse. He got no new information from a brief stop they made at the x-ray hut, in which Winthrop demanded the “Kingston films.” 

The orderly on duty produced them, and Winthrop held one up to the light, and swore. “Damn it.”

“Sir?”

Winthrop just shook his head, and took the films with him as they continued to the guardhouse.

Rouse was in a cell, unshaven and dressed in trousers and undershirt. He looked all right, though, and got to his feet when he saw who his visitor was—though he made it plain he was in no particular hurry.

Wordlessly, Winthrop handed the x-ray film through the bars. Rouse took it, looking a little uncertain, and held it up to the light, as Winthrop had done. He studied it for a long moment, then handed it back.

Winthrop cleared his throat. “It is, as you see, an incomplete, nondisplaced fracture of the femoral head. Masked, in his initial evaluation, by hysterical paralysis and the absence of any visible signs. In hindsight, when the reported symptoms changed, a thorough medical workup should have been ordered.”

Rouse nodded. “Yes, sir. That would be my assessment as well.”

“Unfortunately, under the stress of…physical activity, the fracture…became complete. Compound, in fact. Snapped like a twig, as I believe you put it, when…when he was made to put his full weight on it. He’s in theater now.” 

Rouse nodded. “Well, sounds like you really fucked the dog.” He paused, a bit theatrically. “Sorry, sir, I forget myself. I meant to say _the dog was fucked_.”

Christ, he really couldn’t stop digging himself in deeper, could he? 

Major Winthrop sighed. “And you wonder why it’s so difficult for those of us not raised in a gutter to take you seriously.”

“Oh, I think I have a pretty good idea,” said Rouse. “Sir.”

Thomas could see Winthrop looking at the gauntlet Rouse had thrown down, and deciding not to pick it up. “I’m not going to argue with you,” he said. “I’ll talk to Colonel Ottley about getting you out of here. But I will not be recommending that you be restored to your rank. You’re a bad influence.”

“If you say so, sir.” 

Major Winthrop shook his head, and left. Thomas stayed. 

“What happened?” Rouse asked.

Thomas told him, concluding, “I should have listened to you. I was—I was afraid, is what I was. I don’t know if there’s anything I could have done, but I didn’t try, because I didn’t want to end up tied to a post.” 

“It’s all right,” Rouse began.

“No, it’s not,” Thomas said. “I fucked up. Not anywhere near as badly as he did.” He jerked his head toward the doorway from which Major Winthrop had left. “But I fucked up. He was one of mine, and I should have tried.”

Rouse thought for a moment. “From what I hear,” he said, “the only thing you can do, when you’ve really fucked the fucking dog, is learn how not to do it next time.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Notes: A patient, diagnosed with a psychosomatic limp, actually has a partially-fractured leg. Corporal Rouse suspects the misdiagnosis, but is unable to persuade the Medical Officer in charge to reconsider. His pursuit of the matter results in him being put on Field Punishment One. Meanwhile, the patient is put on one of Thomas's work crews. Fearing F.P One more than death itself, Thomas follows the party line, and under the stress of the work, the man's leg breaks the rest of the way--a potentially life-threatening complication. Faced with indisputable evidence, the Medical Officer admits his mistake, and the patient is sent back to England for proper treatment. 
> 
> Historical Note: The Kingston case is, fortunately, _not_ based on any historical example. However, given the prevalence of psychosomatic conditions among shell-shocked men, it seems like a plausible mistake. 
> 
> Historical note on Field Punishment: In 1917, the War Office released instructions to avoid any visual resemblance to the cross or crucifixion when administering F.P. One, as well as to avoid any potential injury to the offender. (Determining why such instructions were necessary is left as an exercise for the reader.)
> 
> This page (https://spartacus-educational.com/FWWfield.htm) has some good background on the subject, including an illustration of how it was _supposed_ to look.


	14. Chapter 11: March-April, 1916

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Thomas and the gang's secondment to the CCS ends, they find that some things have changed back at the 47th.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content notes: Medical gore, homophobia.

Rouse came back to the barracks that evening, stowing his kit at Kenyon’s old bunk. If he minded his demotion, Thomas couldn’t tell; at the first question, he cheerfully told the story of his capture. He’d been caught—as Thomas had guessed—after he took the new x-ray films of Kingston’s leg, but before he’d had a chance to examine them. He’d also made no attempt to deny what he was doing or why—knowing him, Thomas wasn’t surprised. Major Winthrop, as the MO in charge of Kingston’s case, had been rousted out of bed to deal with the situation.

“He wouldn’t even look at the fucking films,” Rouse said. “Or let me look at ‘em. Bloody bastard. Spent the rest of the night in the guardhouse, and then first thing in the morning, they had me in front of a board. It was fucking rigged—they wouldn’t look at the films either, barely let me get a word in.”

“Was it awful, being on FP?” somebody asked.

“Nah. Easier than working. It was only when they had poor Kingston going back and forth in front of me that I was fussed about it. That were proper cruel.”

A few days later, Kingston was sent on a convoy back to the base hospitals—probably, Rouse heard from one of the surgeons, bound from there to Blighty, where he’d need at least one more operation if he was to walk again. 

The same night, Theo left on a convoy heading in the opposite direction. Thomas went to the ward before dinner, taking him a spare pair of socks and a couple of packs of cigarettes. “Here,” he said, handing them to him.

“Thanks.” Theo was dressed in his uniform, sergeant’s stripes and all. It looked good on him, Thomas thought, but it didn’t suit him. Theo liked soft clothes, when he wasn’t in livery. 

He put the cigarettes in his tunic pockets, and the socks in his pack. “Just what I needed,” he said, re-fastening the straps of his pack. “I’m meeting up with my regiment in rest camp, they said. So that’ll be good. Get a few days to adjust before we go back up.”

“Good,” said Thomas. 

“What about you?”

“Do you know yet when you’re going back to your regular outfit?”

For a moment, Thomas wondered if Theo had forgotten that he wasn’t a patient here. Then he remembered that the section had been seconded here for the winter—and now it was nearly spring. He hadn’t really thought about the fact that they’d be going back to the 47th. Back when they first came, it had seemed so distant as to be barely worth noticing. “No, they haven’t said.” He could, he realized, write to Jessop and ask. The Wardmaster might know what the plan was.

Theo looked around. His bed was in the middle of the ward, and all around them were other patients—some, packing for one or another of the convoys leaving tonight. “I feel like a walk. You busy?”

He wanted to talk without being overheard, he meant. “I’m free till dinner.”

They went outside and wandered up towards the half-finished new wards. “I’m glad I met your friends,” Theo said. “Do me a favor and, uh, don’t push ‘em away, all right?”

Thomas’s first impulse was to deny that he had any idea who Theo was talking about. He suppressed it.

“I mean it,” Theo added. “Nobody should be alone in this place. And they’re good chaps, both of them.” He bumped his shoulder against Thomas’s. “Rawlins is cute as hell, too.”

Thomas shot him a look. “I don’t think so.”

“Not really,” Theo agreed. “But he’d do schoolboy stuff if it was you asking. Especially once you’re back up where there’s no girls—good excuse.”

Thomas let himself, for a moment, think about Rawlins that way. He probably _would_ , now that Theo mentioned it. He always followed Thomas’s lead. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“Maybe not,” Theo admitted. “Could be fun, though.” He went on, “Now Rouse—had you caught on to him yet?”

Thomas shook his head. “You think? Peter thought so, too.” 

“He told me,” Theo said. “One night when I couldn’t sleep.”

“You didn’t tell him—”

“No,” Theo said. “We weren’t talking about you.” He tilted his head to one side. “I say talking….”

“Really?” said Thomas. “Where?” Not in the middle of the ward, surely.

“That little room where they wash the chamber pots,” Theo said. “Not the most _romantic_ spot.” He went on, “I don’t think you’re his type, and I _know_ he’s not yours—but that could be fun, too.” 

“I’m not really looking for fun,” Thomas said. 

Theo gave him a sidelong look. “Has there been anybody, since Peter?”

“No.”

“I don’t think he’d _mind_. I mean, it isn’t…disloyal.”

“It’s not that,” Thomas said. “I just don’t want to.”

“Don’t, then,” Theo said with a shrug. “But you still need friends.”

Thomas thought of Rawlins, pressing up against his side when they sat on the barracks steps, smoking in the cold. “Yeah. All right.”

The nurses, Thomas knew, were in the habit of lining up outside the administration building to wave the convoys off, when they were headed to the Front. A few men usually joined them, but Thomas never had. 

He felt a bit conspicuous, standing there for Theo’s convoy. He felt even more conspicuous when Theo, standing in line to have his name checked off a list, broke away from the group. There were a few catcalls, from men who assumed he was heading for one of the nurses. 

He hugged Thomas tightly, and said into his ear, “Be all right. Please, please, be all right.”

Thomas, awkwardly, patted his shoulder. “You, too.”

Once the convoy had gone, he walked back to the barracks and sat on the steps. It was a warm evening—spring coming early—but he wrapped his greatcoat tightly around himself, holding it closed with his free hand while he smoked.

He was not entirely surprised when Rouse and Rawlins came out, Rawlins crowding onto the step with him, Rouse taking the one above. “Your mate get off all right?” Rouse asked.

Thomas nodded. “Yeah.” 

Rouse put his hand on Thomas’s shoulder, and Thomas didn’t push him away.

#

About a week later, their orders came to return to the 47th. Thomas had sat down, once or twice, with the intention of writing to Corporal Jessop, but had never quite managed it. 

He hadn’t realized, until he had the departure orders in his hand, that a small part of him hadn’t been entirely sure they’d want him back. Not for any particular reason—he knew the Wardmaster wasn’t angry about the billeting sergeant anymore—but no one else had ever asked him back after sending him away.

None of the other seemed at all surprised, when Thomas told them about their orders. They were to leave in a little less than a week—which was more notice than you often got. 

“Wonder if they really fixed the barn,” Perkins said, looking around the barracks, “or if they just decided it’s warm enough now we can survive sleeping there.”

“I haven’t heard anything,” Thomas said. “But the Wardmaster said they’d fix it.” Still, even with a new roof, the barn was going to be a step down—it had taken him a month to get used to sleeping in a bed again, but now that he had, he wasn’t overly keen on going back to a bedroll on flagstones. 

“Are you going to make us do extra drill and shout at us about our uniforms again?” Plank wanted to know.

Thomas thought that was one of his stupider questions—as Thomas had explained, he’d done that for a reason—but everyone else looked a bit eager to hear the answer, too. “No,” he said. “Even if they’ve suddenly started doing drill and uniform inspections there, we’re ready for it. But let’s try and make a good showing of it tomorrow, all right?” The whole platoon was scheduled to do stretcher drill the next afternoon; Colonel Ottley usually turned up for that. “Should be the last one we have to do for a while.”

“Thank God,” said Manning. 

To be honest, Thomas didn’t think much of stretcher drill, either. All of the maneuvers assumed you had as much room as you needed, and that you were in no particular hurry. Stretcher drill by squads at least had the benefit that each man on the squad could take a turn leading it, which was helpful when it came to picking team leaders for work details, but stretcher drill by platoon resembled nothing so much as an extremely dull circus act. Like the one where the clowns carried around a ladder, if they forgot to make any humorous mistakes.

Still, they got through it, and Thomas’s section did as well as anybody else, and better than some. Better yet, they had the rest of the afternoon off, and they walked back to the barracks from the parade ground, discussing what they were going to do with it.

“Think I’ll go for a drink,” Rouse said. “You?”

Thomas didn’t have anything better to do. “Yeah, all right. Rawlins, you coming?”

Rawlins considered for a moment, then shook his head. “The nurses are having a tennis tournament. Wanna come? We can go for a drink any time, but we don’t have _that_ back at the 47th.”

Since the weather had turned warm, watching the nurses play tennis had become the most popular leisure activity for orderlies and ambulatory patients alike. Thomas had a theoretical understanding of the appeal, but had difficulty feigning enthusiasm for it. 

Rouse, he now knew, wouldn’t be any more interested than he was, but for the look of the thing, Thomas said to him, “I could use a drink, but we can do that instead if you want.”

“Nah,” said Rouse. “You can tell us who won,” he told Rawlins.

Rawlins shrugged. “Suit yourselves.”

As they walked toward the village, Rouse said, “You ready to go back?”

Thomas nodded. “You?”

“More than ready.”

“You think they’ll, uh….” Thomas gestured at the absence of stripes on Rouse’s sleeve. “Put you back up?”

Rouse scoffed. “No. I do all right, at the 83rd, but I don’t have it as good as you do at the 47th.”

“Yeah?” He wasn’t sure what Rouse meant. The 83rd was closer to the Front, certainly, but Rouse didn’t seem bothered by that. 

“I’m not saying you don’t deserve it,” Rouse went on. “God knows you work hard. But I hope you know the stars really lined up for you on that one.”

Thomas gave him a sidelong look. It definitely wasn’t proximity to the Front that he was talking about.

“Don’t get me wrong—I’ve had my share of lucky breaks. Just not in the war. I’d still be down the pit, if somebody hadn’t taken an interest at the right moment. I could see right away, when you lot turned up at the Aid Post, that Jessop and Allenby had taken an interest in you.”

Oh, _that_. Captain Allenby, of course, he knew that, but… “Jessop? Are you sure?”

“Of course. What do you—” He stopped, turned to face Thomas, and gave him a slow, lingering, up-and-down look. 

Thomas returned it—not with _intent_ ; Theo was right that Rouse wasn’t his type, but that wasn’t what Rouse was asking.

“Right,” said Rouse. “Thought so. But I _meant_ an interest in your _career_.”

“Oh,” Thomas said, feeling rather stupid. 

“So, did you and Allenby…?”

“Made a pass, but I turned him down,” Thomas said. “He’s all right, though. Knows how to take no for an answer.”

“I noticed that, too.” He hunched his shoulders. “Not really interested in being anybody’s bit of rough, thanks.”

No, he didn’t suppose Rouse would be. “I don’t mind that sort of thing, but…I just didn’t fancy it.” That wasn’t the truth, of course. Not the whole truth. “Too soon after Peter.”

Rouse looked confused for a moment, then comprehension dawned. “He…wasn’t your brother.”

It wasn’t really a question, but Thomas answered it anyway. “No.” Carefully not looking at Rouse, he said, “We met working for Lady Waterstone. Me first job. We’ve been—we were—best mates from the beginning. The...other part was new.” He inhaled sharply, through his nose. “We were going to…after the war, we were going to try to…figure out some way.” His breath shuddered on the way out. “Some way to have a life together.”

“Oh, Christ,” said Rouse, and it sounded more like a prayer than blasphemy. “I’m so sorry.”

Thomas nodded, and tried to breathe evenly. He’d never said it before. Never laid it out like that. What it was that he’d lost. He shook his head. “Sorry—what were you saying about Corporal Jessop and Captain Allenby?”

Rouse gave him a sidelong look, but nodded. “Right. I could see that they were, uh.” He paused a moment, marshalling his thoughts, but—thankfully—didn’t turn the subject back to Peter. “They were setting you up to show what you could do. There’s two ways to do that—I’ve had both. If they want to see you fail, they throw you into something you’re not ready for and then tell you how you should have done it. The other way, the good way, they give you what you need to get it right, and then watch to see if you’re clever enough to use it. Like, uh, doing the tetanus antitoxin injections—I don’t think Jessop ever _said_ that he was teaching you how to do it, but he made sure you had plenty of chances to watch him do it before he had you try one.”

Carefully keeping his thoughts on the time at the Aid Post—not anything before that, and certainly not any imagined future—Thomas began to get a sense of what he meant. Jessop had often told him things, or showed him things, without making a point of why Thomas might need to know them. And then, a day or two later, he’d say, “Well, lad, do you remember how to….”

Carson had done something like it, in his early days at the Abbey. He’d ask him to describe how to do this or that—or even worse, to demonstrate it—and then explain, in detail, usually in front of an audience, what Thomas had got wrong. 

But when Jessop did that, Thomas usually _did_ remember. He’d thought, perhaps, that it was just that he was older and more responsible, better at paying attention. That probably _was_ part of it—but what if another part, a bigger part, was that Carson _hadn’t wanted_ Thomas to pass his little tests?

Then he thought of the workroom behind the clock shop. How many times had he struggled with something—even something as simple as opening the back of a clock to clean it—only to have Dad—Mr. Barrow—wordlessly hand him a different tool than the one he’d been using? 

It was, he thought, not quite as good as Jessop’s way, but miles better than Carson’s. 

“I see what you mean,” he said, pulling himself back to the present. They were entering the village now; he had to be careful. “The Wardmaster does that, too. Like how he told me, before we left, that we had to be ready for drill and inspections.”

Rouse nodded. “Yeah. Nobody warned me about that. Even if they had, I wouldn’t have done as good a job as you did—but they didn’t. Maybe they didn’t know, or didn’t think it was important. Or maybe they set me up to get taken down a peg.” He shrugged. “Jessop, your Wardmaster—they want to see you win, and they’re in a position to see you get something like a fair shot at it. That’s not something blokes like us always have.” 

“Don’t I know it,” said Thomas. Story of his life, that was.

“I’m sure you do,” Rouse agreed. “But what you have to remember is, the blokes we’re up against? They’ve always had that. Take Rawlins, for instance.”

“Rawlins is all right,” Thomas objected.

“He is.” Rouse nodded. “He knows you’re better than he is, and he doesn’t resent it. That’s rare. But…how old were you when you left school?”

“Fourteen.” Obviously. You were supposed to have your leaver’s certificate to be a corporal; Thomas had read it in one of the manuals. 

“Just out of curiosity, did anyone ever suggest you might keep going?”

Thomas scoffed. “No. Wasn’t near clever enough for that.”

“Yes, you are,” said Rouse. “You’re cleverer than at _least_ half the blokes I went to secondary school with.”

“The ones who were paying their own way, you mean,” Thomas said. He had only a vague idea of how scholarships for secondary school worked, but he knew you had to be more than just averagely clever to get one.

“The ones whose mums and dads were paying their way,” Rouse corrected. “I mean, I don’t know—maybe you could have gotten a scholarship if somebody’d taken an interest in you back then. I sure couldn’t have done it on me own. This one all right?” he asked, indicating an estaminet.

“Sure.”

They went inside and found a table—Sunday afternoon, the place was about half-full. Rouse ordered a pint, Thomas a _vin blanc_. The barmaid was a woman at least a decade older than either of them, maybe two, rouged and uncorseted. 

Once she’d brought their drinks, Rouse went on, “But my point is, the whole system’s rigged against blokes like us. To go to secondary school, first I had to be the cleverest lad in my council school. Then the schoolmaster had to _notice_ that I was, and he had to decide he was willing to put in a lot of time he wasn’t getting paid for, to do something about it. All that, just for it to even be a _question_ whether I might be able to go. And then me dad had to figure out a way we could get by if I was spending all my time studying, when other lads my age were starting to earn a wage. But somebody like Rawlins…he’d’ve had to be a few bricks shy of a load before there was even a question that he _wouldn’t_ keep on with school.”

Thomas nodded slowly, remembering how Rawlins had talked about being groomed for management at the factory where his father worked—because he didn’t have any _better_ idea of what he’d like to do. He hadn’t really thought about it at the time—Thomas was used to looking at people like the Crawleys, or Philip Crowborough, and compared to them, any advantages Rawlins had would barely register. But really, what would it be like to have a life where management was where you ended up because you _weren’t trying_? “I see what you mean,” he said, taking a sip of his wine. It was thin and vinegary. “But there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“No,” Rouse agreed. “But that’s what I mean, about you being lucky at the 47th. You ever have somebody in your corner before?”

“No,” said Thomas. Then, “Peter. At Lady Waterstone’s.”

Rouse nodded. “What did you _do_ there, anyway? For a job?”

“We were junior footmen,” Thomas said. Rouse probably didn’t know what that meant—how would he? “Polished the silver, washed the crystal, answered the door, carried in guests’ luggage. Helped wait at table.” He glanced at Rouse. “I know, it doesn’t sound like much.”

Rouse laughed. “Was trying not to say that.”

“The hard part is that you’re on display, but you aren’t really supposed to be seen. Like…wallpaper. You only really notice it if there’s something wrong with it. So the point is to be so perfect that nobody notices you.”

Rouse blew out a breath. “Not sure I could handle that.” 

“Well, you have to be tall, too, so….” Thomas lit a cigarette, and offered the pack to Rouse, who took one. “They want matched pairs, like carriage horses. There’s a household manual that actually says that.”

“Blimey. Not sure I wouldn’t rather be a pit pony than a carriage horse—if those are the only two choices.”

Thomas would most definitely not. “I suppose it’s all in what you’re used to. I reckon that’s why I’m all right at drill—it’s the same kind of…invisibility. If it’s going right, the individual people just disappear in plain sight.”

“Yeah, that bit of it kind of makes my skin crawl,” said Rouse. “I’ve never wanted to disappear.”

After the _Albion_ , that was all Thomas had wanted. Was it still? He wasn’t sure.

“So that was—” He signaled the barmaid for another drink; Thomas caught her eye and nodded, too. “I wondered, when I was on F.P. You told them all not to look at me?”

“Yeah,” said Thomas. Speaking of things that made one’s skin crawl….

Rouse nodded. “I figured that had to be a kindness, in your head. Wasn’t sure how.”

“What, did you _want_ us to gawk at you?”

“Not _gawk_ ,” said Rouse. “I was looking for some kind of a sign, though— _yes, we see what’s happening, and it sure is fucked up_. It wasn’t until I thought about it a bit that I realized you were coming at it from the other direction, like.”

“Yeah,” Thomas said, still not really understanding what Rouse had wanted him to do. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. Thanks,” he added, to the barmaid as she brought their second round. Once she’d left, he continued, “It was watching Kingston that really got to me. I know you didn’t have a choice about that.”

“Well,” said Thomas. “I could have said I’d have no part of it, and ended up standing next to you.” Just thinking about it made him nauseous. 

“Yeah,” said Rouse. “That’s probably what I’d have done, had the situation been reversed.”

Thomas nodded; he’d thought so.

Rouse went on, “But I’m not saying it would’ve been wise of me. It’s not like we’re the only two blokes qualified to run fatigues, and I don’t imagine two orderlies making a stink would impress them more than one. At the 47th, maybe, where you’re the Wardmaster’s fair-haired boy, but not here.”

“At the 47th, somebody might have listened to you, too. Captain Allenby, for one.”

“You have a point, there.”

Thomas hesitated. “I don’t suppose there’s any way we can get you transferred.” If there was, did he really want to suggest it? The Wardmaster liked him because he was working-class and bright—he’d be inviting in a rival who could best him on both counts. 

But Rouse said, “I doubt it. I’m not sure how all that works, but I think if it could be done, it’d take somebody working it at both ends, and I wouldn’t know where to start at the 83rd. Don’t worry about it. If I was stuck _here_ , I might be grasping at straws for a way out, but I’m all right, at the 83rd. I get to do a decent amount of real medical work when I’m at the Regimental Aid Post, and when I’m not there, they usually put me on night duty. I can generally stay out of trouble as long as nobody’s standing over my shoulder picking at my every move.”

It was on night duty that Rouse had gotten into trouble here, but Thomas didn’t argue the point. “All right.”

“I mean, if you hear something where it makes sense to put in a word for me, I’d appreciate it. But don’t go sticking your neck out.” He hesitated. “You know, even if they like you, you only get to pull those strings so many times, right?”

“I know.” He hadn’t, in fact, been thinking of that. But that was how it was if they liked you because they were sleeping with you; there was no reason this would be any different. 

“Figured.” 

Deciding that it was about time to talk about something other than himself, Thomas said, “Speaking of Captain Allenby, he mentioned, before we left, that he was interested in the shell shock treatments they were working on here. What do you suppose I ought to tell him about it?” 

As he’d expected, Rouse had definite ideas on the subject, and they talked about that through another round of drinks and a plate of egg and chips each, until it was time to head back to the station.

When they were nearly there, though, and Thomas thought about the fact that he’d probably not speak to Rouse alone again, he said, “Peter. Liked you a lot. He said, uh….” What _had_ he said? Thomas had tried not to think about his letters—not to think about him at all—for so long. “That he admired you greatly. Or immensely. Something like that.”

Rouse gave him a sidelong look. “Thanks. I…that’s good to know. He was something special. We all loved him. He was just….” 

“Good,” Thomas said. “He was just good. And he made other people want to be good, too.”

“Yeah,” said Rouse. “That’s it. That’s exactly it.”

#

A few days later, they went back to the 47th. Rouse’s section left first thing in the morning, on the march, but they were told, that morning, that an ambulance was expected from the 47th, so they might as well wait and catch a ride back. It was a bit of a squeeze, and some of them ended up hanging on to the outside, but they were back to the 47th not much after lunchtime.

Approaching, Thomas could see that there had been some changes. The road went through the Transport Corps area first, and there were a lot more vehicles and horses, as well as several new huts. “What’s _that_?” somebody up front asked, as they passed a particularly large one.

“Munitions store,” the driver said. 

Their own station had grown, too. There was a new block of wards going up, and the surgical hut was twice as big as it had been. The ambulance yard looked just the same, though, and so did the orderlies’ room, when they trooped inside. 

While a couple of the others set about seeing if a cup of tea could be had, Thomas cautiously poked his head into the NCOs’ room. Jessop was there, doing something at his desk. “Hey,” Thomas said.

Jessop turned. “Lad!” He got up. “You’re looking fit. How was it?”

“All right, I guess. We spent a lot of time on fatigues. Are we supposed to report in anywhere?”

Jessop shook his head. “Wardmaster’ll want to see you, but you’re not on roster until tomorrow.” 

“Oh, good. Give us a chance to get settled back in. Are we back in our old billet?”

“Aye. His office is in the same place it was,” he added, tilting his head in that direction.

Thomas hadn’t quite realized that he meant the Wardmaster wanted to see him _right then_ , but he went. Before he was halfway down the passage, he could hear the Wardmaster, shouting and swearing as usual—his door was open, and there was somebody in there with him. He hesitated, but Jessop _had_ said that the Wardmaster wanted to see him.

He knocked. 

“What?” the Wardmaster bellowed. The two sergeants standing in front of his desk shuffled to one side.

“Uh, it’s Barrow, Sergeant,” he said, as the two sergeants standing in front of the desk shuffled to one side. Reporting in.”

“Oh,” he said, beckoning. “You’re back. You bring back all your men?”

That had to be a joke—why wouldn’t he have? “Yes, Sergeant.”

“How was it, son?”

“Different,” Thomas said. “I think we did all right. Upheld the honor of the 47th.”

“Good.” He glanced at the two sergeants. “I wanna hear all the fuck about it, but I’m in the middle of something, here. Come back before dinner, all right?”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

The Wardmaster nodded. “You been out to the fucking barn yet?”

“No.”

“Well, fuck off and have a look at it,” he said, and turned his attention back to the two sergeants.

That was strange. With a mental shrug, Thomas went back to the orderlies’ room, stopping on the way to check the posted duty roster. “We’re all on day shift tomorrow,” he told the others. “D Wards. All we have to do today is get settled in back at the barn.”

“Home, sweet barn,” somebody said, as they all started picking up their packs. 

“Night off,” Manning said. “Are we going out?”

Everybody looked at him. He shrugged. “I have to meet with the Wardmaster before dinner, but maybe I’ll catch up later.” They might be expecting him in the NCOs’ mess—who knew? 

They could see the improvement in the barn even before they reached it, as soon as they turned up Petticoat Lane. The roof was now covered in shingles, a patchwork of different colors and sizes. Thomas thought a of the time, back at Downton, when some of the slate tiles on the east wing roof had come off, during a heavy storm. The replacements had been a shade or two lighter in color, and Carson had tutted over the unsightliness of it all, but there was nothing to be done—the quarry the old ones had come from, the workmen said, had closed. 

Arriving at the barn, Thomas walked around it, while the others went inside. The half-rotted shutters over the windows had been replaced, too, and the latrine had been moved, and the old pit filled in—something Thomas had realized, reading his RAMC training manual, was likely overdue to be done. There was also at least a cord of firewood, stacked neatly against the wall, on the side opposite from the direction the wind usually came. 

Somebody really had made an effort. The thought was oddly warming.

From inside, he heard Rawlins say, “Fuck me blind.” 

He must have picked the expression up from Rouse, and Thomas smiled a little at how it sounded in his accent. 

Rawlins stuck his head out the door, “Barrow, you’ve got to see this.”

“Coming.” Inside, there were a dozen bunks, set up in rows, with footlockers, and a stack of bedding on each one. He looked up, and the roof was bright new wood, under the shingles. “Christ,” he said. 

“Bit of all right, innit?” said Collins. 

“It’s a fucking palace.” He put his kit down on the bunk between Rawlins and Perkins. “Is somebody gonna make the tea?”

Someone did, and they’d picked up bread, cheese, and jam rations before they left the station, so they had a slap-up tea, as they stowed their gear and made up their bunks. At one point, a particularly bold mouse scampered out of the wall, heading for the breadcrumbs that were scattered around the stove, where some people had been toasting theirs.

“Well, that’s one thing that hasn’t changed,” Thomas said.

“I have a plan about that,” Collins said. “We get a cat.”

“Huh,” said Rawlins, thoughtfully.

“Where are we going to get a cat?” Thomas asked. You saw them around, slinking in and out of piles of rubble, but they fled at the sight of a human being. “We’d need a tame one.”

But Collins said, “Nurse Bradford’s had kittens a few weeks ago. She’s giving them away in a couple of weeks—I said we might take one. All we have to do is get somebody to bring it back on the ambulance.”

All right, so Collins had that part of the plan figured out. “What do we feed it, once we have it?”

“They eat mice, don’t they?” Rawlins asked.

“If it’s doing its job, after a bit there won’t be enough mice around to keep it fed,” Thomas said. 

“We can bring back meat scraps from the mess,” Collins said. “And trade for fish heads and offal and things—we can get those for jam, no problem. Maybe milk, too.”

Tins of Army jam were a common form of currency with the local people. The jam ration was a frankly ridiculous half-pound per day. Most of the time, the cooks traded it for something more sensible before you even saw it, but if you got your rations issued to you, instead of eating in the mess—as they had today, because they were, theoretically, on an all-day march—you got a tin each. They had ten left from today’s issue. “Will that do it?” Thomas asked. “A cat needs to be fed every day, you know.” Dad—Mr. Barrow—had said that, when Jamie and Alice wanted a dog. 

“Sardines,” suggested Rawlins. “And condensed milk. I’m sure my family’ll send us some, if I ask. Anybody else?”

“We’re going to have a milk and sardines rota, in addition to the tea rota?” Thomas asked. Several of them took it in turns to have their people back in England send the Fortnum’s Superior that they mixed in with the standard-issue tea. Anna and Mrs. Hughes supplied Thomas’s share; he wasn’t sure they’d be amused, if he started asking for cat food, too.

“My gran will,” said Plank. “She likes cats.”

Manning nodded, too, and a couple of the others. 

Collins said, “Mine would think I’d gone barking mad if I asked them to send food for a cat—but I could put in a sixpence now and then.” 

A couple of other people nodded at that, too.

“Seems like an awful lot of bother,” Thomas pointed out. “How much are the mice going to bother us, now we’re not sleeping on the ground, and we’ve got lockers to put our stuff in?”

“Didn’t think of that,” Collins admitted. “I guess we don’t really _need_ a cat.”

There was a long moment of silence, until Rawlins said, “It’d be kind of nice, though. Make the place more homelike.”

Thomas would have pointed out that they were _in a war_ , it wasn’t _supposed_ to be homelike—but several other people were murmuring in agreement. 

“Could we get a dog, instead?” asked Plank.

“A dog’s a lot more trouble,” Collins told him. “And it’s kittens Nurse Bradford has, not puppies.”

“A cat’s a lot more sensible,” Rawlins agreed. “We should stick with that. If we get anything.” He looked at Thomas expectantly, and soon everyone else was, too.

Belatedly, Thomas realized that they were waiting for him to _say_ if they could have a cat or not—though really, it seemed unlikely that the Army would view decisions about barracks pets as part of a corporal’s remit. “I don’t really see the point, but I suppose if we’re all agreed, there’s no harm in it, either.”

And that, apparently, meant that they were getting a cat. Everyone started talking about things like what to name it and things they’d heard about how to pick out a good mouser. 

They were still talking about it, in fact, when they headed back to the station, Thomas for his meeting with the Wardmaster, and the rest for various estaminets. Rawlins and a few others were bound for Granny’s—“if it’s still open,” Rawlins said—and Thomas said he’d meet them there, if he was free.

This time, the Wardmaster was alone in his office, and he waved Thomas to the now-familiar chairs in front of the fireplace, and brought over the also-familiar bottle of Armagnac. Honestly, Thomas was beginning to wonder where he got the stuff; the way he went through it, he must have a regular source of supply. 

“So,” the Wardmaster said, handing him a glass, “how’s the barn?”

“Everyone was very impressed,” Thomas said. “They had us in a proper barracks, back at the Clearing Station, and we were all saying that was the only thing we’d miss—but I think this is even better.”

“I heard, about the barracks—didn’t want a mutiny on my hands. That’s about all I heard, though. About your lot, anyway. You didn’t fancy it, back there?”

Thomas hesitated. “It wasn’t what we’re used to, I suppose. You were right about being ready for drill and inspections. We had an inspection two hours after we got there, and drill every morning for a week. And then they had us on fatigues something like two weeks out of three.” He went on to explain about the shell shock patients. “So some of it was work that really needed doing, to get the new buildings ready, but some of it was just make-work.”

“That can be a real fucker, when it comes to morale,” the Wardmaster said.

“Yeah. We were usually broken up into two or three work parties, so I rotated the teams around, had different team leaders each day, to try and keep it interesting. Might have been more efficient to keep it the same every time—but once they started putting the shell shock cases with us, I could tell efficiency wasn’t what they were looking for. Cut down on complaints—if somebody thought they had a better idea, they’d have a chance to try it.” 

“Good,” said the Wardmaster. “You’d’ve come in for your share of fatigues if you’d been here,” he added, stretching his boots out in front of him. “You have a look around?”

Thomas nodded. “I saw the new wards, and the surgical building,” he said cautiously. The others had noticed, too, but there hadn’t been much speculation about why they needed them. 

“Yeah. You see the fucking munitions dump?”

Thomas nodded.

“We’ve got a new medical officer, too—head of surgery—and we’re getting a new section’s worth of orderlies. Maybe two.” He gave Thomas a steady look. “You know what that means?”

Thomas was fairly sure he did. “They’re expecting us to be busier. The spring offensive?”

The Wardmaster nodded. “Probably a summer offensive, since Fritz started his so fucking early. They haven’t said where, yet. But they’re building up at this end of the line. Third and Fourth Army areas.” He looked weary. 

They were in the Fourth Army area. “Makes sense,” Thomas said. “They’ve already tried breaking through in Flanders, twice.” That was the northern end of the Front line, held by the Belgians and by the British First and Second Armies.

“Yeah. And it’ll take some of the pressure of the French, down at Verdun.” 

Verdun was where the Germans had begun their spring offensive, in the southern part of the Front held by the French. The French line extended from Switzerland up to the river Somme, a dozen or so miles from where they sat. “You figure we’re in for it, then?”

“Yeah. I figure we’re fucking in for it.” He took a deep breath. “But not for a while, yet. And it could be the Third takes the brunt of it. The next thing, for us, is gonna be getting the new blokes up to speed.”

“When do they come?”

“Little under a month.” He knocked back half his drink. “So, new sections, new corporals. Who do you like?”

“Hm?”

“You’ve seen how your lads did leading work details. If you were picking corporals for the new sections, who would you tap?”

Oh. This was a test, obviously—but, as Rouse had explained, it was one the Wardmaster wanted to see him pass. It would be more important to explain his reasoning, than to guess who the Wardmaster was thinking of. “Collins. I like the way he sizes up a job, before he starts in on it. Doesn’t just jump in with both feet.” His approach was a little more cautious than Thomas’s was—Thomas tended to assume that, if they fucked up, they’d go back and fix it. “He’s a farm lad. Turns out that involves more thinking than I realized. If you get something wrong, it might be a year before you can try again, he told me.”

The Wardmaster nodded encouragingly.

“And he was good with the shell shock blokes. Figuring out what they could handle and what they couldn’t. The trick—the way the Major wanted it—is to make just enough allowances that they can contribute, but not give them too much slack. And keep up with what they can do, as they get better. I reckon you’d need to do that with new men, too.”

“Collins,” he said. “All right. Anybody else?”

Thomas had to think a little more about the second name. “Manning wants it, and people usually follow his lead. If I put him on a team with a leader who wasn’t very good at it, he’d end up running it instead. And, when I said about somebody thinking they had a better idea? That was usually him.”

The Wardmaster shifted in his seat. “How’d he take it when his idea _wasn’t_ better?”

“He learned from it,” Thomas said, cautiously. “But you have to not rub it in. He’s also, uh…he was a better team leader when it was supposed to be somebody else’s turn, because then he’d have to work to get the others on side with him. If he was supposed to be in charge, he’d just lean on that. Most of the others had the opposite problem—they’d stand there and let Manning argue with them until I came up and reminded them they were in charge, and then when he was in charge, I’d have to do the opposite, and remind him not to get too high-handed with the others.”

“Hm,” said the Wardmaster.

“Yeah.” Manning had resented it, and it was hard to blame him. “I missed something, there—I tried to tell him that I was giving him the opposite advice because he was erring in the opposite direction, but I don’t think I got through.” 

“He might just need to hear it from somebody other than you,” the Wardmaster said. “Manning’s one I had my eye on. The others look up to him—and he didn’t lose his fucking shit when you came in and snatched his crown. That counts for a lot. He’s a little too cocky, but he could shape up if somebody took him in hand.” 

Thomas was acutely aware that the Wardmaster could have been describing him—or, at least, him before the _Albion_. “I’m not sure I’d have handled that so well, in his shoes,” he said. He knew for a fact he hadn’t, when it had been Bates stealing his crown. Or William, who’d come in from nowhere and become Carson’s protégé overnight. Or Jamie, for that matter, stealing the crown he’d never stood to inherit. “I do wonder if he ever regrets spreading around that hand story, though.”

“Yeah. I reckon he was picturing you as his lieutenant. Squire. Right-hand man. But that’s not you. Not by a fucking long shot.”

Thomas took a gulp of his drink to cover his surprise. Most of his life, he’d have _murdered_ to be somebody’s right-hand man. Carson’s protégé, the Duke of Crowborough’s favorite. The son of _Barrow and Son’s Fine Clocks_. Was that why it had never worked out? Not because he wasn’t good enough to be second fiddle, but because he was meant to be _first_? 

“What about Rawlins?” the Wardmaster asked.

“As a corporal?”

“Yeah, as a fucking corporal.”

Thomas hesitated. “Between you, me and the doorpost—no. He’s bright, but he’s got no initiative. And he wants everybody to like him. He’d muddle along, but I don’t think he’d be very good at it—or even want it, if he really thought about it.” 

The Wardmaster nodded, and tipped more Armagnac into Thomas’s glass. “That was a fucking test, by the way—I know you’re mates. That’s my read on him, too—he’s a clever sod, but lazy. If I gave him a section, you’d be running both of them.”

He wasn’t wrong. Rawlins was _his_ right-hand man. “That would almost work, though,” Thomas mused. “He picks up things I miss. With new blokes, he’d see it a long time before I did, if they were having a hard time. Not with the work, I mean. _That_ I’d notice. With…adjusting, to all of this.” He gestured to indicate the station, the war, all of it. He wasn’t the sort of person you’d go to, if you were having nightmares or if the sound of guns was getting so far into your head you couldn’t think straight. No more than a new footman or hallboy would tell Carson that he was homesick or that the first footman was picking on him. But they had Mrs. Hughes for that. “And I’m the last person they’d tell—especially once they heard the fucking hand story. But they’d go to him, and he’d tell me what I needed to know.”

“We’re not fucking doing that,” the Wardmaster said. “If we had three new sections to sort out, _maybe_ , but it’ll be two, at most.”

Thomas nodded quickly. “Right.” It hadn’t been a serious suggestion. “I was just thinking out loud.” He was saying more than he meant to, was what he was doing. It was hard to keep track of how much he was drinking, since his glass never got empty before the Wardmaster filled it up again.

“Two sections is too much for you, but you’re right about Rawlins. One of the things I’m thinking about doing, is splitting up your section and mixing in the new lads. If I decide to go that way, I’ll keep him with you. Anybody else you want?”

Thomas thought about it, marshalling his thoughts carefully before he spoke. “If I get Rawlins, I should take Plank, too. He’s not what you’d call a quick thinker, but he works hard, so they balance each other out a bit. Widener, Perkins, Applegate, and Liston are all pretty solid, so I’d take one or two of them, depending on who the other corporals are.” If it was somebody more experienced than he was, he’d keep two. “If the other corporal really is going to be from our section, and it isn’t Manning, he’s gonna kick. Probably best if he stays with me, in that case.” He’d kick against Thomas, too, but at least Thomas had some practice. “But if it’s somebody Manning would look up to, then he should take him.” 

“That’s what I was thinking,” the Wardmaster agreed. “What about Collins? If we don’t put him up?”

“He’s not expecting it, the way Manning is,” Thomas said. “As far as I know, anyway.” Maybe he should ask Rawlins about that. “I’d be glad to have him, but if I already have Rawlins, and we wanted to do the other bloke a favor, I could live without him.”

The Wardmaster nodded. “What do you think of Applegate?”

Thomas shrugged. “He’s all right. Not the sharpest, but he tries. People like him.” 

With a heavy sigh, the Wardmaster topped up their glasses. “The _brass_ like him.”

Thomas squinted at him. The Armagnac might be starting to catch up with him—how would the officers know enough about Applegate to like him or not?

“He went to a minor fucking public school.”

Thomas set his glass down with a thud. “They like him for _corporal_?” 

The Wardmaster nodded. “Now I can tell them I had a talk with his corporal about leadership ability, and his name didn’t fucking come up.” He shook his head. “This is _all_ between you, me, and the doorpost, by the way. I want a chance to look at your lads before they know they’re being watched—and if they end up not liking my decision, you don’t need them to know you had anything to do with it.”

Thomas had not entirely realized that he _was_ having anything to do with it. “Of course.” He admitted, “I thought this was a test.”

The Wardmaster shrugged. “You’re not actually picking them—I am. But I’ll take a look at Collins. I didn’t have a good idea of who the fuck to suggest instead of Applegate. If you’re right about him, that’s gonna solve a real fucking problem for me.”

“Glad I could help,” Thomas said, his head swimming slightly at the heady notion that the Wardmaster might really act on a suggestion from _him_. Unless that was from the liquor. 

“If we’re lucky, they’ll drop Applegate when I give them another name. If not…we might need to do him a bit of a dirty.”

Thomas heard the wet snap of Kingston’s leg, and saw Rouse, tied to a fucking post. But that wasn’t what the Wardmaster meant. “How do you mean?”

“Just put him out of his fucking depth for a bit. Make sure they see him floundering. I don’t like setting a lad up like that, but it’s better than the fucking alternative, if it comes to it.”

Thomas didn’t know what to say, and sipped at his drink, instead. He didn’t like the idea much, either. 

The Wardmaster knocked back his drink, shook his head, and refilled it, sloshing a little more into Thomas’s glass while he was at it. “So they had you working with shell shock cases. How was that?”

“It weren’t easy,” Thomas said. “They’re meant to be light cases, but a lot of them seemed to be in a pretty bad way—losing their voices, use of their limbs. And you aren’t supposed to be too sympathetic to them. It really felt, sometimes, like they were just tormenting the poor sods. They’d have them out there working while they were still pretty ill.” 

“Yeah, not sure I like the sound of that,” the Wardmaster agreed. “We didn’t see shit like that, in South Africa. You’d see heart troubles, sometimes, after a shock—Soldier’s Heart, they called it—but not many. They said it was more common in Crimea.” He shook his head. “I’m not surprised they don’t know what to do with the poor fuckers. You can’t just send them home; not when it’s that many.” He gave Thomas a sidelong look. “Heard one of the other corporals had a real fucking problem with it.”

Thomas nodded. “Rouse. He did.” He’d thought about whether to bring that up or not, but hadn’t decided. On the one hand, it didn’t reflect well on him—one way or another—but he wondered if the Wardmaster would have any better ideas, about what he could have done. “He didn’t like any of it, but there was one case...I don’t know how much you heard.”

“I heard some clever bugger of a corporal argued with a Major about a case, got busted down and put on F.P., and then it turned out he was right. I was pretty fucking relieved to hear it wasn’t you.”

“I was…involved, a little bit,” Thomas admitted. “The bloke—his name was Kingston—started out with hysterical paralysis, but when that went away, he kept on insisting he his leg hurt. Could barely move it, or put weight on it. It was a little strange—sometimes the hysterical symptoms clear up gradually, but they don’t usually develop a new one in the middle of it.” Rouse had pointed that out to him, when they’d talked about it afterwards. “So Rouse examined him—he was a medical student, before the war.”

“Oh,” said the Wardmaster, nodding. “He’s _that_ clever bugger. Jessop told me about him. Miner’s son made good?”

Thomas nodded. “Bright as hell, but he can’t quite get his head around the fact that he can’t talk to officers like he’s an equal. After he examined him, he came up with a theory, that Kingston’s leg really was broken, just not all the way through.” He went on to explain about the two times he’d covered Rouse’s ward, while he investigated his theory. 

“Sailing a little close to the fucking wind there, son,” the Wardmaster pointed out. 

Thomas nodded contritely. “Sorry, Sergeant.”

“No, I’m fucking impressed—it just doesn’t seem like you.”

Thomas had momentarily forgotten that he had a reputation here as a rule-follower. “Well, if anyone had asked, I thought I was covering for him for a bit while he met a girl; I’m as shocked as anyone about the gross insubordination he was really up to.”

The Wardmaster nodded. “Good. So I take it he got caught the second fucking time?”

“Yeah. That one was a lot riskier—and I still don’t know what he thought he was going to do with the new x-rays, even if they did prove he was right. The way it turned out, the MO refused to even look at them until after the poor bastard broke his leg the rest of the way.” 

He went on to explain about Rouse’s F.P., and Kingston’s part in it. “Fucking sadists. Even if they really believed they had to do that to Kingston, to cure him, they didn’t have to make Rouse watch. And make the rest of us watch Rouse watching it. They had his section out there, too.”

“They do that,” the Wardmaster said. “Make a fucking spectacle. Keeps anyone else from getting ideas.”

“Well, it worked. The next day, they had us digging graves—Kingston, too. I just about sat up and begged to convince that Major I wasn’t going easy on him.” He downed the rest of his drink before telling the Wardmaster about the Major’s bit of theater with the shovel, and his small but shameful part in it. “It wasn’t right. I don’t see how I could have stopped it, but I could have at least said it wasn’t right.”

The Wardmaster sighed, and refilled Thomas’s glass. “Would’ve been pissing into the wind if you had,” he said. “And it sounds like they had e-fucking-nuff of corporals getting mouthy about this particular issue. The smart thing to do would’ve been to get another officer to take an interest in the case, before this Major had dug his heels in too far. A major might bend his fucking neck enough to listen to a captain who disagrees with him about a case, but not a fucking corporal.” 

Thomas nodded. “That’s what I thought. But getting officers on his side is not one of Rouse’s strong suits. And I was trying to keep me head down.”

“Yeah. That’s one of those things that’s a good idea right up until it isn’t.” He sighed. “That’s the kind of thing that keeps you up at night, but don’t beat yourself up over it. By the time it got that bad, I’m not sure there’s anything _I_ could’ve done to stop it.”

Thomas nodded, and his head spun a little. 

“Apart from giving Rouse a clip ‘round the ear,” the Wardmaster added. “Which it sounds to me like he could fucking use.”

He’d more than had one, Thomas thought—but maybe it would mean a bit more, coming from another working-class bloke. “Yeah.”

“They’ll be looking for us in the mess soon,” the Wardmaster went on. “Anything else you want to talk about?”

There was something. About the new sections. What was it? “The others, will be wondering, uh….”

“You can tell them we’re getting a new section or two, and that there’s no official word yet about an offensive, but I see the same things they do, and I’ve drawn the same fucking conclusions. When they see the next duty roster, they might guess I’m looking for corporals, but don’t confirm it.”

Thomas nodded, and then remembered why it wasn’t a good idea to do that just now. That was good to know—they would ask what the Wardmaster had said—but it wasn’t what he’d been thinking of. “They’re talking about getting a cat,” he said. That was part of it. 

The Wardmaster gave him a funny look. “Yeah?”

Reviewing that statement, Thomas realized it hadn’t made a lot of sense. “I mean, they’re going to want to know, about the billet. If we’re moving out, or getting split up. Before we get too settled in.”

“Oh,” said the Wardmaster. “No, we’re gonna put the new lads up in tents, through the summer. Get the fucking cat.” He refilled his glass one more time and, before Thomas could stop him, sloshed some more into his, too, saying, “One more, before we go.”

Thomas was beginning to think he’d had more than enough, but it wasn’t as though the Wardmaster could put it back in the bottle. He knocked it back, and then staggered as he got up.

“Easy there, son.” The Wardmaster steadied him with a hand on his back. “Cat, huh?” he asked, as they headed for the mess.

“For the mice,” Thomas explained. “Since everything else is fixed now. And one of the nurses had kittens.” He blinked. “Her cat had kittens, I mean.”

“Yeah, I reckon it would’ve made the fucking papers, otherwise,” the Wardmaster said. 

Thomas—there was no other word for it—giggled.

“Right, so that last one was a fucking mistake,” the Wardmaster said. 

“Out of practice,” Thomas said, as they went outside. It had been a long time since the fucking Criterion.

“Criterion, huh? Posh fucker.”

Had he said that out loud? “More ways than one.” He giggled again.

The Wardmaster grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. “Hey.”

“Oh, fuck,” Thomas said, a tendril of fear worming its way through the soft alcoholic haze that had crept up and covered everything. “I said that out loud too, didn’t I?”

“You did,” the Wardmaster confirmed. “Do I need to put you back in my office to sober up, before you say anything else out loud?”

He meant because it was a military offense to be drunk in public—not because the Wardmaster understood the significance of what Thomas had said. The way he could tell, was that he was standing there, with his hand on Thomas’s neck, and not shoving him away in disgust. 

He took a deep breath of the cold night air, and pulled himself together. “I’m all right.” 

“All right.” He nodded, releasing Thomas. “Keep your mouth shut, until you get something in your stomach to soak up all that booze.”

“Yes,” Thomas said. “I will do that. Sergeant.”

In the mess, he put Thomas into a seat next to Jessop, and said, “Keep an eye on him. He’s a little tight. And not being very careful.”

Jessop gave him a sympathetic look. “Did you try to keep up with him?”

“Not quite,” Thomas said. “Just, uh, one too many.” 

“That happens, with him,” Jessop said, casting a worried eye toward the Wardmaster, taking his seat at the head of the table.

#

Barrow did sober up as he got his dinner into him—fortunately. That could be tricky, drinking on an empty stomach and then trying to rectify the lack afterwards. By the time dinner was over, Jessop was comfortable leaving him to make his own way back to his billet—also fortunately, the lad was clever enough to realize that catching up to his mates in whatever estaminet they’d crawled into wasn’t a particularly good idea.

Tully, on the other hand….

“We’re getting the lad drunk now?” he asked, as they settled down in Tully’s office. “Is that a good idea?”

“I wanted to loosen him up so he’d tell me if anything was bothering him,” Tully answered, gulping down some more of his French liquor. “And it worked—a little too well. He didn’t drop any more fucking hairpins, did he?”

Jessop shook his head. “What did he _say_? Or—do?”

“About that? Nothing anybody else would’ve noticed. Just that he used to drink at the Criterion. And he’s a posh fucker in more ways than one.” He chuckled. “Stands to fucking reason. I kind of wanted to bring him back here, give him a few more, and see what happened.”

That wasn’t a good idea, either, and Tully knew it. Jessop changed the subject. “ _Was_ anything bothering him?”

“Yeah. You remember Rouse?”

Jessop nodded. “Sharp lad.”

“Sharp enough to fucking cut himself.” Tully went on to tell an entirely unsurprising story about Rouse going toe-to-toe with an officer, and paying the price. “Barrow kept out of it, but it rattled him some.”

That _was_ the sort of thing that rattled Barrow. “He and Rouse are mates.”

“I fucking gathered.” Tully poured himself another drink. “He seems to have done all right otherwise. No major problems with the section. He likes Collins, for corporal.”

“You asked him?” Jessop didn’t think he would have—Barrow had only been a corporal himself for a couple of months.

“He had them taking turns leading work details,” Tully explained. “What do you think? He was on your list, wasn’t he?”

The list of names Jessop had given him when Tully asked for someone else to consider alongside Manning and Applegate, he meant. “He was,” he agreed. He wondered if Tully really didn’t remember—if he was that drunk—or if he just wanted to hear Jessop agree with what he was already planning to do. “Didn’t stand out above the others, but then, none of them did.” That was why it was a list, and not a name. “You thinking of trying him out next week?”

“Yeah. Beats picking one out of a fucking hat, and if he’s no good, we’ll learn something about Barrow.”

He had a point. “All right. So Collins, Manning, and Applegate, then?”

“Unless I can talk Thwait out of Applegate. Then I still need a third name.”

“Barrow didn’t have one?”

“No—I tried asking who he wanted to keep, if I split up the section, but he went for balancing the two sections, instead of skimming the cream off the top.”

“That’s good, though,” Jessop pointed out.

“Yeah, just not fucking helpful in the present situation. Gave me an idea, though—what do you think of having him draw up a roster for next week? Tell him who we picked for lance corporals, see how he divvies the rest of them?”

That wasn’t a bad idea—was a better one, in fact, than asking him to weigh in on promotions. “All right. And then he runs it by me?”

“Yeah. We might have to give him a hint, about not propping up Applegate too much.”

That was another thing Jessop wouldn’t have brought the lad in on. “You told him that, too?”

“I fucking _alluded_ to it,” Tully admitted.

“They’re his mates,” Jessop reminded him. 

“And we’ve got a fucking push coming. We need to know if he can be a bastard.” Tully took a swig from his drink. “I don’t like it any more than you do.”

He might like it even less, if the amount of drinking he was doing was any indication. Or maybe it was just that Tully was the one who’d have to decide where they put Barrow when the shit hit. Sometimes it was—as Tully would say—a real fucking relief to just be a corporal. “Yeah,” Jessop said. “All right. What else do you have in mind for him?”

As Jessop had hoped, that distracted Tully from thinking about the push—and from reaching for the bottle again. “We’ll keep him with the section for about a week, then switch him over to clerk. You’re dead right that if we let him, he’ll end up running all three sections. I mentioned how we couldn’t put Rawlins up, for that very fucking reason, and he almost had me giving it a second thought.”

“No,” Jessop said. A _sergeant_ ran four sections. Jessop had done it, a time or two, but he couldn’t keep track of that many people—what they needed, what they were good for. “He hasn’t been in the Army a _year_ , yet.”

“I know. He _did_ convince me to keep Rawlins with him, though. To handle the soft stuff.”

Handling the soft stuff was what Jessop had done for Tully, in the early days. And still did, he supposed. “Good. We can’t expect the next batch of new lads to take to this as easily as he did.” 

“That’s what he said, more or less,” Tully said. “So he’ll clerk for me until the new lads get here, and then we start training them. I wish to fucking hell we knew how much time we have.”

Until the push, he meant. “They might give us some idea, by then,” Jessop suggested. 

“Might,” Tully agreed. “Best not wait to get them up toward the Front.”

Jessop didn’t point out that Tully had been the one dragging his feet on that, with the last batch. “No, best not. Will we have Barrow and the other new corporals take them?”

Tully nodded, and reached for the bottle.

#

Thomas didn’t have to wait long to find out what the Wardmaster had meant about the next duty roster, and the section figuring out that the Wardmaster was looking for corporals. They were on night shift on the wards—in fact, they made up most of the night-shift roster—with Collins, Manning, and Applegate named as lance-corporals. 

“Who’s going on which blocks?” he asked Jessop, when he found him in the NCOs’ room after seeing the roster.

“You tell me,” Jessop said, handing him a stack of personnel files. “These are your extra men—if there’s anything else you want to know about them, I’m right here.”

Thomas hesitated.

“You’ve been doing this for months, lad,” Jessop reminded him. “It’s no different.”

It was different because they were working on wards with actual patients, not digging holes in the ground. But Thomas didn’t argue, just sat down and got to work. 

“One more thing,” Jessop added. 

Thomas looked up at him. 

“Wardmaster says not to do Applegate too many fucking favors. You follow?”

“I do.” Thomas nodded. “Thanks.”

He worked on it for the rest of the day, in between his duties on wards, moving men around, trying different configurations. It reminded him queerly of when he’d sat at his desk, a few months ago, and worked out drill maneuvers using paper clips. This was a bit more complicated. The way night duty worked was that each ward was covered by one or two men—depending on how many patients it had—and each block of three or four wards had a corporal or lance-corporal in charge. Collins, Manning, and Applegate would each have a block, and Thomas himself would have the fourth. 

Several times, he thought he was almost finished, only to discover that he’d left someone out, or put someone else in two places at once. It was just before dinner that he finally had it done, and took it to Jessop. “Does this look all right?” He hoped Jessop would tell him, if he was making any big mistakes.

“Aye, lad,” he said, reading it. “Next comes the hard part.”

“What’s that?”

“When your lads take charge of their blocks, and you stay out of their way.”

“Oh,” Thomas said. He had, in fact, put himself in B block because it was in the middle of things, so he could keep an eye on everyone else.

“Remember the first time you were night corporal on D?” Jessop asked. “You want ‘em to know they can come to you if they have questions, but don’t look over their shoulders the whole time.” 

Thomas nodded. “I remember.”

It really was the hard part, as he learned a few nights later, when they started their night duty. Jessop had told him he could take a walk around the other blocks in the early part of the shift, to see that everyone was settling in, but apart from that, he was supposed to keep to his own ward unless asked. The walk-around went well, but he kept wondering if he ought to make another one, just in case. Out of sheer nerves, he checked the wards on his own block often enough that Rawlins, Plank, and Widener started looking exasperated when they saw him. 

His only hint of how things were going on the other blocks came when Captain Allenby wandered in, saying he’d just come from A block’s Men’s Sick, where Collins had summoned him to check on a patient’s elevated fever. 

“It wasn’t that high,” Allenby added. “I expect he’s a bit nervous.”

“Sorry he woke you for nothing, sir,” Thomas said.

“It’s all right,” Allenby said. “I was hoping I’d get a chance to see you.”

To talk about the shell shock treatments, he might mean. 

Or not. He really wasn’t bad-looking, with his boyish face and his serious eyes—and Thomas wasn’t quite as numb to the prospect as he had been, last year. 

In fact, he’d found himself…responding, a bit, when Rawlins crowded up to him the way he did. Even worse, lately his thoughts had been turning fondly to the memory of the Wardmaster grabbing his neck outside the mess. He’d even _dreamed_ about it once, and woken up vaguely aroused and specifically horrified.

So maybe it was time, to start thinking about it, at least. It wasn’t as though they could _do_ anything now, not with his entire section on the wards and liable to come looking for him any second. But they could certainly _talk_. 

Thomas leaned back in his seat, set his shoulders at an angle to Allenby’s, and said, “Here I am.”

“I see that.” Allenby took out two cigarettes, lit them, and handed one to Thomas. “How was the CCS?”

“Not terribly interesting,” Thomas said. “Rouse was there.”

“I’m sure that wasn’t why it was uninteresting,” Allenby noted.

“No,” Thomas agreed. “We missed you, actually.”

“Oh?” Allenby raised an eyebrow. 

He might have made that sound a bit more exciting than it really was, Thomas realized. He dialed it back a bit and said, “We—he, really—got into a bit of a jam. We both thought you’d’ve helped, if you’d been there.” People like that—posh fuckers, as the Wardmaster would say—liked the idea that they could help you. As long as you didn’t ask for too much.

“How’s that?”

So Thomas told him about Kingston, skimming lightly over the real horror of it, and leaning on the fact that they’d been out of their depth, without a kindly officer to turn to. 

“ _Field punishment_?” Allenby said, when he got to that part. “Good lord. That seems like a bit of an overreaction.”

“I’m not sure what Rouse said to him, but it was probably fit to peel the paint off the walls,” Thomas said. “You know Rouse.”

“He does seem to respond better to sympathetic handling,” Allenby said. “It sounds ghastly. What happened to the patient?”

“They sent him back to Blighty. Said he’d probably need at least one more operation.” 

“And if the fracture was still incomplete, he’d only need bed rest,” Allenby said, with a shake of his head. “So I take it you didn’t think much of the treatment program—even for patients who don’t have broken legs?”

“Most of them improved,” Thomas said cautiously, aware that he was, after all, talking to an officer. “But it seemed cruel. And I wondered whether the improvement would last, once they were up at the Front again. The only thing they got there that they wouldn’t get at a rest camp was the Major talking to them for five minutes at a time, every couple of days. I don’t see how much that could help.”

Allenby nodded. “There are some psychiatrists getting good results with talk therapy, particularly for officers. But the dose needs to be a bit larger than that.” He glanced at his watch, and sighed. “I should go back and check on the patient in A again,” he said, standing up and buttoning his jacket. “I expect he’s fine, but I, unlike some people, pay attention when my orderlies think something’s wrong.”

Thomas smiled, like he was supposed to. “That you do, sir.”

“I hope we can talk again.”

“I’m on nights all week,” Thomas said, cautiously. Allenby knew that; the duty roster was public.

“Of course. I wish there was someplace we could go and really catch up.”

There was a hint of a question in his tone, and Thomas said cautiously, “I’d like that. I’m not sure how, though. We’re not allowed in the same estaminets.” He wasn’t quite ready to accept an invitation back to Allenby’s billet, either. 

“No,” Allenby agreed. “If we were in London, I could think of a place or two to take you.”

So could Thomas. “Downstairs bar at the Criterion?”

“Exactly.”

“ _Après la guerre_ ,” Thomas suggested. After the war. It was how respectable Frenchwomen responded to soldiers’ blandishments—and how French tarts opened negotiations. “If we both live that long.”

“ _Après la guerre_ ,” Allenby agreed. 

The next morning at breakfast, most of the section reported quiet nights on their wards. Apart from a few dysentery cases who had required unscheduled bed-baths and a change of sheets, Collins’s fever patient was the most excitement anyone had had. 

“Wasn’t the MO cross that you woke him up for nothing?” Applegate asked. 

“He didn’t seem like it,” Collins answered, uncertainly. 

“It’s better to wake him and find out you didn’t need to, then _not_ wake him and find out you should have,” Thomas told them. “And Captain Allenby’s all right. He won’t mind.” Even if they were giving Applegate enough rope to hang himself, _that_ wasn’t a mistake Thomas wanted him making. 

“How do _you_ know?” Manning asked.

“They were at the Aid Post together,” Rawlins reminded him. 

The next few days also went smoothly enough. The day corporals had complaints about all three of the lance-corporals’ paperwork, so Thomas spent a bit of time going over it with them. Collins’s got better right away, Manning’s once he made up his mind to make an effort, and Applegate…well, Applegate tried. He had trouble remembering what went in which column of the ledger, even when Thomas made up an example page for him to look at. He also had a hard time keeping track of all the things he was supposed to do each night, and usually skipped one minor chore or another. The most serious was the time he forgot to record anything from the midnight round of pulses and temperatures—he swore up and down that he had _done_ them, and Thomas believed him, but he had somehow managed to do the whole ward without remembering that he was supposed to write them on the patients’ charts. 

When that happened, Jessop said that he thought they’d take him off lance-corporal duty and try someone else, but after he met with the Wardmaster, the duty roster stayed unchanged. 

Thomas didn’t see the Wardmaster himself for most of the week—and when he finally did, it was at the worst possible moment.

It all started when Cadman came into his ward, at about two in the morning, whispering urgently about someone hemorrhaging in C block’s Men’s Surgical. “What are you telling me for?” Thomas asked. “Get Allenby!”

“I did,” he said. “But—can you come? Collins wants you.”

“All right.” After getting Rawlins to keep an eye on his ward as well as his own, he grabbed his coat and went over to C. 

The lights were on in Men’s Surgical, and Allenby was barking orders—put pressure here, clamp this, tell Surgical Prep we’re coming, for God’s sake _hurry_. 

Then, suddenly, he fell silent. It happened just about when Morris and another bloke showed up with a stretcher. Allenby started to wave them away, then shook his head and motioned them back. “Morgue,” he said simply.

Quite a few of the patients were sitting up and watching the show; they started whispering between the beds.

“What happened?”

“Why’d he stop?”

“Copped it.”

“Poor blighter pegged out.”

Meanwhile, Morris and the other bloke gathered up the body, and Collins stood there like a statue. He was white as one, too, under his freckles. “All right?” Thomas asked him. 

He nodded, jerkily. “Yeah. Uh. We should strip that bed. Before the blood soaks through more than it has.”

Thomas helped him do it. “You’ve seen blokes die before,” he reminded him. 

“I have,” Collins agreed, bundling up the sheets. “Never been in charge before, when it happened.”

Oh. “It’s not your fault,” Thomas pointed out. “They must have missed something when they operated on ‘im. Or he was too badly hurt to begin with.”

“I know,” Collins said. “I just…I don’t know.”

Thomas wished he’d sent Rawlins, and stayed in the wards himself. “Just think about the next thing you have to do. We’ll put this stuff in the burn bin. Make up the bed again.”

“We should, ah, we should put the kettle on,” Collins said. “The patients’ll be shaken up, too, seeing this.”

“Good idea. Tea and cigarettes all ‘round, and once they’re settled, we’ll have some, too.”

So they did that, and as they took the tea around, they told the patients that the poor bastard had been very badly injured when he came in—much worse than the man you were speaking to—because that was what you said, whether it was true or not. 

Morris and the other bloke came back just as they were finishing up the tea round, and after quick checks on their own wards, they all convened in C block’s sink-room. Thomas handed round the tea, and Collins asked, “You lads all right?”

They all nodded solemnly. “Did the officer say what happened?” Cadman asked. 

Collins shook his head. “No.”

“He might not know yet either,” Thomas said. “But he won’t mind telling you, when he finds out. If you want to know.” 

“Thanks,” Collins said. He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “I’m fine. These things happen.”

You couldn’t argue with that. 

A few hours later, Thomas was in his own block’s sinkroom, putting some things away, when Captain Allenby came in. His jacket was unbuttoned, his tie hanging loose, and he looked like he had been up all night—which he probably had, but he usually didn’t look it. “Have you ever noticed,” he said, “that it’s easier when a whole lot of them die at once?” He leaned up against the doorframe. “You don’t have to think about them as people. It’s just,” he gestured. “On to the next.” 

Oh. That explained a lot, really. “I can usually manage that even when it’s only one.” 

“Lucky you,” said Captain Allenby. “How do you manage that?”

“I have a lot of practice not thinking about things. The trick is to think about something else. Did you find out what happened to that bloke?”

“I did,” Allenby said, and began talking about a weakness in the something-or-other artery, which had given way under the pressure created by the damage to something else. 

Thomas didn’t really try to follow it, just made occasional encouraging noises, and when Allenby finally wound down, he said, “See? You weren’t thinking about him being a person then, were you?”

“No,” Allenby agreed. “That’s a good trick. I’ll have to remember that one.” He tilted his head back, exposing the long, pale line of his throat. “What else shall we think about?”

It was a little obvious, but what the hell. They’d had a rough night. Thomas backed him up against the cabinet they kept the bedpans in, and kissed him. 

And he didn’t think about: a little room above the Bird and Bell. Kew Gardens. A telegram boy standing at the kitchen door of Downton Abbey, framed in sunlight like a saint. Letters that said _I don’t know if you’ve heard, but…._ A ship, going down. A man, bleeding to death in front of his eyes. The big push, and whether or not they’d need to find a place to put the dozen or two new men they were getting, or if that problem would just…take care of itself. 

He did think about: the heat of a body under his. The pressure of lips on his. The scent of aftershave and hair oil. A cock, pressing against his hip, and his own hardening in answer. The taste of whiskey on his tongue. Hands, stroking down his back. A heartbeat, pounding in time with his own.

He also did not think about: the fact that they were in a public place. The open door. The approaching dawn. 

Not, at least, until a familiar voice said, “Son, how are you—oh _fuck me_.”

Thomas sprang away from Allenby as though he had caught fire—but of course, that wasn’t quick enough. Not nearly quick enough. His mind raced for an explanation, but there wasn’t one. There was no way to explain this away. 

“I beg your fucking pardon, sir,” said the Wardmaster. “I’d like to see Corporal Barrow, when you’re through with him.”

“Of course, Sergeant,” Captain Allenby said. “We’ll just, um…that is, I….”

“Yeah,” the Wardmaster said, and withdrew, closing the door behind him. 

Thomas wiped his mouth with his hand, and buttoned his tunic back up. They hadn’t gotten as far as opening anybody’s trousers, was about all you could say for this situation. 

Allenby looked at him, wide-eyed. “How bad do you suppose that is?”

“I don’t know,” Thomas said. Was this, as far as the Wardmaster was concerned, something you kept in the fucking family, or something you passed up the chain before the shit had time to stick? “He likes me—or he did. He might. I don’t know.” His legs fell out from underneath him, and he was sitting on the ground. “ _Fuck_.” 

Even if the Wardmaster didn’t report him, he sure as fuck wasn’t going to be his golden boy anymore. 

“I’m sorry,” Allenby said. “I…damn it to hell. I’m sorry.” He looked as wretched as Thomas felt.

“I started it,” Thomas pointed out. 

“Not exactly.”

It didn’t really matter—not unless one or the other of them was going to claim the other had just suddenly started kissing him a fraction of a second before the Wardmaster opened the door. And it was a little late for that. “I’d better go,” Thomas said, making no move to get up. “He’s going to….” He didn’t even know what the Wardmaster was going to do, but it would not do any fucking good at all for him to get the idea that they were actually in here _finishing up._

“Probably,” Allenby said, extended a hand to help Thomas to his feet.

He took it. “Thanks. I’ll, um—I’ll tell you what’s happening, if I can.” If he wasn’t in the fucking guardhouse. 

The Wardmaster was, at least, not waiting for him out in B block. He was probably in his office, Thomas thought distantly, and headed there, feeling like a ghost as he moved through the passageways. He didn’t see many people—it was too early—but the ones he did, seemed like they were underwater. Or like he was. Like they, or he, were in a different world, parallel to the real one. 

The Wardmaster’s door was half-open. Thomas took a deep breath, steeling himself, and knocked.

“Yes?”

His mouth was dry. “It’s Barrow.”

“Come in.”

Thomas did. The Wardmaster was at his desk, of course, his tunic buttoned up to the throat. 

“Shut the fucking door.”

Thomas shut the fucking door, then stood in front of the Wardmaster’s desk and braced up, keeping his eyes fixed straight ahead. 

“I won’t ask what the fuck you were thinking, because it’s pretty fucking obvious you _weren’t_.”

“Yes, Master Sergeant.” 

“Do you have any fucking idea—” He shook his head. “I have put a lot of fucking work into you, and if the wrong fucking person had seen _that_ , it would all be for fucking nothing. Do you understand that?”

Startled, Thomas glanced at him. Was he saying that the wrong person _hadn’t_ seen that?

The Wardmaster sighed. “Sit the fuck down, son.”

He was still “son”? Shakily, keeping a wary eye on the Wardmaster, Thomas sat down.

His tone gentler, the Wardmaster went on, “You have _got_ to be more careful than that. You know that, don’t you?”

Thomas nodded. “I do. I just—” He cut himself off. There was no point making excuses for himself. Even if the Wardmaster was—by some miracle—angry with him for a different reason than he’d thought.

“You didn’t even shut the god-damn door,” the Wardmaster reminded him. 

“It was very stupid of me,” Thomas agreed. 

“And even if you had, anybody could have walked in. Another officer. One of your lads. You want them to see that?”

“No, Master Sergeant.” He swallowed hard. “I won’t do it again.” 

“You’d _best_ not.” The Wardmaster sighed again. “And an _officer_? You’ve got to be careful with that, son. The wrong person sees you being a little too familiar, and you’re in the shit, whether he suspects there’s anything more to it or not.” 

Wait, was the Wardmaster saying—well, no, he wasn’t _saying_ , because no one _said_. But it would explain a hell of a lot. Normal men _never_ liked Thomas. Especially not older ones. He hadn’t noticed anything—but then, hadn’t been paying a lot of attention to that sort of thing. 

Not until just recently, anyway. He remembered being sloppy drunk, on the way to the mess, and the Wardmaster’s hand on his neck. Had that been a _pass_? Even in light of this new information, it didn’t really seem like one—but that raised the question of why he _hadn’t_ made one. Thomas knew what he looked like. 

All of that flashed through his mind in an instant, before he turned his thought back to making some sort of coherent response to what the Wardmaster had said. Cautiously, he essayed, “I have some practice with that kind of thing.” He’d never forgotten, for instance, when Philip was “Philip” and when he was “your Grace.” 

“I reckon you do,” the Wardmaster said. “But the stakes can be pretty fucking high, in the Army. I once saw a bloke get 28 days F.P. one for calling a Rupert by his Christian name, when another Rupert was walking by.”

Thomas could not entirely repress a shudder.

“Yeah. Figured that would put a scare into you.” He lit two cigarettes and handed one to Thomas—erasing any lingering doubts on _that_ score. 

It still didn’t feel like a pass, though—just a signal—and the Wardmaster continued, “The other thing about fucking Ruperts is that, no matter what you get up to, they’re still fucking Ruperts. Especially if things go south, between you—but even if not, it’s always gonna be more important for you to keep them happy, than for them to keep you happy.”

Well, of course it was. “I’m used to that, too.”

The Wardmaster gave him a pitying look. “I’m not saying you can’t handle it, son. I’m saying maybe you don’t want to.”

Oh. He’d never quite thought of it that way before. 

“You stick to your own kind, it can be harder to find an opportunity, but you don’t risk ending up with some bugger thinking he owns you.”

That wasn’t a problem Thomas had ever had—the problem _he_ had, was that none of them ever _wanted_ to own him. Not really. 

But then again, he wasn’t sure he’d have liked it if they had. _We don’t have the basis of a master-servant relationship_ , His Grace Philip had said, and perhaps he hadn’t just been talking about Thomas being his valet. 

“So that’s my piece on the subject,” the Wardmaster said. “But it’s not my business what you do—unless you _make_ it my business.” 

“I understand,” Thomas said. He wasn’t forbidding him to see Captain Allenby—not that he actually _could_ , except in the ways that he _absolutely_ could—but he had damn well best not get caught again.

“Good. Now. What I was actually looking for you for, was to see how Collins was handling that poor bugger bleeding to death on his watch.”

Right. Thomas put his mind back on the job. “He was a bit shaken up, but he kept it together….”

They talked about that for a few minutes, and then the Wardmaster dismissed him back to his wards—they still had a couple of hours left before the day shift came on. When he got back, Rawlins was at the desk in Thomas’s ward—good. He hadn’t thought about getting someone to keep an eye on things while he was gone.

Among other things he hadn’t thought about.

“Everything all right?” he asked Rawlins.

He nodded. “I left Plank on his own; told him to yell if he needed me.” Thomas had put Plank and Rawlins together in the largest ward on his block, Men’s Sick. “The Captain said you had to go and see the Wardmaster?”

“Yeah—he wanted to know how Collins was holding up. Can you stay here another minute? I have a question for the Captain, too.”

Rawlins said that he could, so Thomas went to the little cupboard where the MO on night call slept. He found Allenby sitting on the edge of his bunk, his tie on straight and his jacket buttoned. “Barrow,” he said, looking behind him.

“It’s all right,” Thomas said. “Tore a strip out of me for being so careless about it, but that’s it.”

“Oh, thank God,” Allenby said, his shoulders slumping in relief. 

Thomas nodded. “I’d better get back,” he said. “But I figured you’d want to know.”

“I did. Thanks.” 

And that, astonishingly, by the grace of God and the Wardmaster, was that. For the next couple of nights, Captain Allenby kept his distance—Thomas felt a tinge of regret over that, but not enough to make a move—and then he was abruptly taken off nights and put on roster as the Wardmaster’s clerk.

He vaguely remembered the Wardmaster saying something about that, before they’d gone to the CCS, but he was looking sideways at the timing. On the first day, the Wardmaster answered that question, too, saying, “In case you were fucking wondering, this was in the works already—but I can’t say I mind having you where I can keep an eye on you.”

That _did_ almost sound like a pass, or at least the prelude to one, but nothing came of it. Thomas wasn’t sure whether he wanted it to, or not. He didn’t usually go for older men—nor for anyone quite as ostentatiously uncouth as the Wardmaster was—but the idea wasn’t without a certain appeal. He had big hands; Thomas liked that. He wasn’t entirely sure whether to imagine them holding him down, or stroking his hair. Either way, the Wardmaster would say _Fuck, son_ , either more roughly or more tenderly than he’d ever say it in real life. 

And either way, Thomas wouldn’t have to make any fucking _decisions_ about it, about where or when or whether it was safe, because the Wardmaster would take care of all that. 

But he only allowed himself to think about it at night in the barn—where he was alone, because everybody else was still on night duty—and even then, not very often. During the day, the Wardmaster was the same as he’d always been, sharp as a whip and crude as a bag of bricks, and fond of Thomas in a hands-off sort of way. Thomas could barely keep up with how much he was learning, about how the dressing station ran, how the _Army_ ran, how to work with officers—or work around them—and how to tell which one was called for.

The Wardmaster knew almost everything that went on at the station both because he had a network of informants—which Thomas had long suspected he must—and because he took in everything and forgot nothing. It wasn’t unusual for a walk across the station grounds to result in a list of half a dozen things that required looking into in one way or another, all completely unrelated both to one another and to the purpose of the trip. One day, inside of a single minute, he noticed one of the motor ambulances making a funny noise, windows on Block A Men’s Surgical not open when they should have been, and an unusual accumulation of French peasants in the kitchen yard. 

On the other hand, while the Wardmaster seemed to have in his head a constantly-updating encyclopedia of the station’s personnel, patients, equipment, and resources, he couldn’t keep track of pieces of paper to save his life. His desk had always looked fairly neat, when Thomas saw it, but that turned out to be because he was in the habit of sweeping piles of clutter into a drawer, for his clerk to sort out later. He wasn’t the sloppy pack-rat that Diggs had been—if something was on his desk, or in his drawer, you could be sure it was important, but sometimes it was a job to figure out how. One of Thomas’s main duties, as his clerk, was to tag along when he met with officers, and hand him various forms and files when he started talking about them. 

He also had very little patience for writing—though he could manage a neat hand when he bothered—and handled most of his correspondence by pacing up and down his office, telling Thomas what to write down. Another of Thomas’s duties at meetings was to take notes—not because the Wardmaster ever referred to them, or even asked Thomas to do so, but because, as the Wardmaster said, “The fucking Ruperts expect you to.” 

So Thomas spent a lot of time sitting across from Major Thwait’s adjutant—while the Wardmaster sat across from Major Thwait—both of them taking notes and supplying their superiors with files. Occasionally—when something reminded him of Rouse, usually—he wondered how much more Lieutenant What’s-His-Name was getting paid than he was, for them to do the same job. 

That probably wasn’t thinking big enough for Rouse, though. He’d want to know why the Wardmaster wasn’t a general. Or Prime Minister. 

It was in that way that Thomas was there when the decision about new corporals—they were getting two new sections—was made. Despite what the Wardmaster had said on the subject, he was not, strictly speaking, picking the new corporals. What he was doing was making recommendations to the Chief Medical Officer. Thomas was given to understand that the Wardmaster had a freer hand, when it came to the enlisted men, than was strictly usual, but, as he said, “You’ve got to give them their own fucking way sometimes.” 

He also said, as they walked across the grounds to the meeting, “You’re gonna want to watch this.”

He was right. The Wardmaster started with Manning—whom the brass also liked, though not as much as they liked Applegate—from a position of cautious agreement, citing Manning’s drive and ambition, and the speed with which he’d picked up on the paperwork and other extra duties of a night-shift corporal, but also mentioning a few reservations, most importantly the allegation—which Thomas thought was probably true—that he had played favorites when it came to the men under him, assigning lighter work to the two from his own section than the outsiders, and allowing them longer and more frequent breaks. 

He then permitted Major Thwait to convince him that those missteps were typical of a young and inexperienced NCO given command over a group which included his friends, and that they could be remedied with instruction and supervision. Thomas filled in Manning’s name on the first set of promotion paperwork, and Thwait signed it.

Then they started talking about poor Applegate. It was fairly hard to watch, as the Wardmaster dragged up every mistake he’d made, including his struggles with paperwork—about which the Wardmaster wasn’t in much of a position to cast stones—and pointed out the potential ramifications of such errors. He lingered darkly on the time Applegate forgot to record pulses and temperatures, sliding over the important detail that Applegate had, in fact, _taken_ them, and presumably would have noticed if there had been anything alarming in them—which Thomas knew the Wardmaster _did_ understand, because they had talked about it. 

Thomas would have hated him a little, for it, but once he was done tearing Applegate down, the Wardmaster went on to talk about the good reports he’d gotten from the NCOs Applegate had worked under, on various wards—that he was a hard worker and a cheerful sort to have around, gentle with the patients, and hated to let anyone down. “We’d not be doing him a kindness, sir, to promote him past what he’s good at. And he’s just a lad—we could take another look at him later on, depending.”

“Well,” said Major Thwait, “if you feel that strongly about it. I take it you have someone else to suggest?”

After that, Collins’s promotion sailed through with little difficulty. They went back to the office, where the Wardmaster poured some drinks—it was afternoon—and said, “So, son, what’d you notice?”

Thomas took his glass and thought carefully. “I didn’t realize you knew about _all_ of those things Applegate got wrong.”

“I had Wilkes and Robertson reporting to me,” he explained. Those were the two men from outside the section that Applegate had in his block. “They didn’t much want to do it—they like the lad—but they didn’t think he’d be too fucking happy being promoted, anyway. What else?”

“When you talked about Applegate doing fairly well as an orderly…that seemed important, but I’m not sure why. Was it just so it would feel less….”

“Less like I was stabbing one of me own lads in the back? Not quite—I didn’t like that much, either, though. Or letting him make that many mistakes—I can think of about a half a dozen ways, off the top of my head, we could’ve propped him up a bit, if that had been the fucking point.” He lit a cigarette. “But the reason I had to say it to Himself, instead of dealing with my conscience on my own fucking time, is so that if Applegate comes to the Major’s attention again, he isn’t thinking of him as just a fuckup. That can make a difference, if he gets in some kind of trouble, or anything.”

“I see.” That was an area where Thomas could stand to learn from the Wardmaster’s example—he wasn’t bad at thinking through the angles once a problem had cropped up, but he had a hard time seeing them coming. 

“What about Manning—did you see what I did with him?”

Thomas had seen something, but it was almost too obvious to point out. “Well, you brought him up first so you could let the Major win one.” He wondered if there was something else he’d missed.

“Yeah,” said the Wardmaster, and waited. “I’ll give you a hint—I wanted him to miss it, too.”

Thomas lit a cigarette, chewing it over. Was there something about Manning—some disqualification—that the Wardmaster had omitted to mention? He couldn’t think of anything. Was there something about _Collins_ he hadn’t mentioned? But the Wardmaster had asked if Thomas saw what he did with Manning, and they’d never compared Manning and Collins—

Oh. “You had him sign Manning’s before you started talking about the other two, because you didn’t want him choosing between Manning and Collins.”

“Good lad,” the Wardmaster said, topping up both their drinks. “There wasn’t too much of a chance the Major’d pick Applegate over Collins, once he had the facts in front of him, but if he’d been looking at three men for two slots, he just might have taken it into his head that it was fair enough if he picked one, over my objections, and let me pick the other. And that would put me in a tight fucking spot, because Collins is a damn sight better than Manning—really, nice fucking catch on that one—but Manning might hit the ceiling if Applegate got the nod and he didn’t, and it would be hard to fucking blame him.”

It would be. “He had some questions when it was _me_ and not him,” Thomas admitted. 

“It wouldn’t’ve been him, then, even if you’d never been born. He’s going to need fucking watching, as he settles in.” The Wardmaster took a drink and added, “Not by you, either. I mean, help ‘em if they ask, like on wards, and let me or Jessop know if they’re in trouble, but I’ll tap a sergeant to keep an eye on each of them.” 

Thomas nodded, feeling obscurely jealous. _He_ hadn’t had a sergeant keeping an eye on him. Sergeant Winchester didn’t count. 

“You have me and Jessop,” the Wardmaster added.

Oh, that was right—he did, didn’t he? 

“Jessop’s been a lance-sergeant at least a dozen times; he just doesn’t like it.” 

“I wondered about that,” Thomas said. It did seem a little strange that they had the same rank, when Jessop had probably gone into the Army before Thomas was born—or at least not long after.

“Luckily, we aren’t hemorrhaging NCOs the way the fighting units are—there hasn’t been much pressure to put him up further than he wants to go.”

#

_6 April, 1916_

_Dear Anna,_

_Thank you for the parcel. I’m sorry I haven’t written since we got back to the 47 th—I have been very busy, working as the Wardmaster’s clerk. I am not sure when the man sleeps! I am finished with that now, but I won’t have much of a respite, because we have some new men coming and my section will be training them. My old section, I should say—as of tomorrow, when the new men turn up, we will be broken up into three, each with four of us and eight of the new blokes. _

_We are all staying in our old billet, however—as I wrote to Mrs. Hughes, it has been fixed up, and very well, too. The new fellows will be sleeping in a tent on the station grounds, which is certainly more convenient, but we have gotten used to being out where no one bothers us while we’re off duty! You can see a bit of our barn in the enclosed photograph—Rawlins, one of my billet-mates, got a vest-pocket camera for his birthday, and has been bothering us with it all week._

_You will also see the newest addition to our section. His name is either Pumpkin, Tiger or Mittens, depending on who you ask. Theoretically, he is supposed to help us with our mouse problem, which has not abated, but at present he is too busy stuffing himself on sardines and chicken, as well as posing for photographs, to do very much about it. (He is Rawlins’s favorite subject; I expect it is a complete accident that I am in the photograph at all.)_

_I wouldn’t be surprised if William got his call-up soon. He really shouldn’t be in any hurry, in my opinion. I don’t know exactly what the Army has planned—and I wouldn’t be allowed to talk about it if I did—but it’s not exactly a secret that there’s something in the works. Early summer is my best guess, so if he’s lucky, he might still be in training when it goes off._

_As far as parcels go, we could use some more tea. Some of the fellows are having their people send tins of sardines for What’s-his-name, but I don’t think he needs them. He is already heavy enough when he lands on your kidneys while you’re trying to sleep._

_Thomas_

Looking at the photograph, Anna had to cover her mouth with her hand to stifle a giggle. It showed Thomas, sitting outside in a battered armchair, with one ankle propped on the opposite knee, reading a newspaper. Perched on his shoulder, like a pirate’s parrot, was a fluffy tabby kitten—an orange tabby, presumably, given the name. It was peering at the newspaper and extending one white-tipped paw as though pointing out something on the page. 

“What is it?” Mr. Bates asked. They were at the servants’ hall table, before tea. 

She handed him the photograph. “They got a kitten, for their billet,” she explained. “Thomas is pretending he doesn’t like it.” 

“Of course he is,” Mr. Bates said. 

“He looks well, though—don’t you think?” Anna asked. She had been worrying about him, as they’d barely heard from him since Christmas. 

“He does,” Mr. Bates agreed. “And he really is a corporal,” he added. “You can see his stripes in the photograph.”

“Did you think he was lying about it?” Anna asked.

“I wouldn’t put it past him.”

Anna decided not to argue the point. “I shall have to show it to Mrs. Hughes.” She, being privy to the description of Thomas as a small, angry kitten, would certainly see the humor in it. 

Her smile faded, as she remembered where that description had come from. 

“What’s wrong?” Mr. Bates asked.

She shook her head. “I just realized, that if Mr. Fitzroy were alive, Thomas would have sent this to him. He’d have liked it, I think.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Historical note: _The French line extended from Switzerland up to the river Somme, a dozen or so miles from where they sat._
> 
> Just wanted to look at that line again. No particular reason...
> 
> On Rawlins's camera: The Kodak Brownie, introduced in 1900, invented the snapshot, or candid, amateur photograph. The company followed it up with the Vest Pocket Kodak in 1912, which folded up for easy carrying, and was marketed as "the soldier's camera" once war broke out. Rawlins's camera is either one of those, or an imitator. They were common enough that the War Office produced regulations against using them at the Front, so that the folks at home wouldn't be exposed to uncensored, unsanitized images of life in the trenches.


	15. Chapter 12:  April-June, 1916

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The new lads arrive at the 47th ambulance...and Thomas teams up with Lieutenant Matthew Crawley to see justice done for one of his men.

The new blokes, when they arrived, looked very, very young—even the handful who were, by the ordinary calendar, older than Thomas or his fellow corporals. It was the way they looked, wide-eyed, at the ambulance being off-loaded nearby, and flinched at the sound of the guns in the distance.

“Those are our guns, by the way,” Collins told them. “We’re far enough back not to have to worry about Fritz’s.”

“Unless something goes drastically wrong up at the Front,” Thomas said. Several of the new men looked even more alarmed at that, so he added, “It’s not likely. You lot are in that tent over there.” He pointed to it. “Stow your kit, and meet back here in fifteen for the Cook’s tour.”

The new men reported back in good time, and the corporals started calling the rosters of their new sections. Thomas was a bit surprised to find that he had two middle-aged blokes and a lad with thick spectacles, as well as one who must’ve gone up on his toes to meet the minimum height requirement. 

He quizzed them as he took them around the station, finding out that they’d come from a training camp outside London, and had done a bit of hospital work as part of their training. Most had worked in factories or shops before joining up; the speccy one had swept up in a cinema, and one of the middle-aged ones had been a barman. They were knowledgeable enough about hospital equipment and routines—in theory, at least—although several of them gulped and looked ill when Thomas took them through surgical prep and the dressings room, where the afternoon’s delivery of new wounded were being seen to. 

“This is where we’ll be tomorrow,” Thomas said, taking them into A block and indicating the two wards they were assigned to. “Men’s Medical, Officers’ Medical.” He took them into Men’s Medical. “Here we get mostly minor wounds—more serious wounds are usually in Surgical—so it’s not one of the more difficult ones to start out on. The lightest cases may convalesce here and then go directly back to their units; most of the others are just here for a day or two until they get moved further back. Sometimes they stay on a bit longer while the medical officers evaluate the case and decide where’s best to send them.” 

The speccy one raised his hand. 

“Yes,” Thomas quickly thought back to the roster. “Drover?”

“What’s happening down there?” He indicated a bed at the end of the row that was partitioned off with screens. “Is the patient contagious, or….”

Thomas beckoned them back into the passageway, making sure that the door to the ward was shut behind them. “Contagious cases are in the quarantine block. Screens around a bed usually means a death-watch.” He’d not have brought it up if no one had asked, but there was no point in white-washing it. “You see those more often in Surgical, but it could be a minor wound that developed a serious infection, or sometimes they put them in the Medical wards just because that’s where there’s space for them.” 

“Oh,” said Drover, quietly.

“You won’t be handling any of those your first couple of weeks. If other patients on the ward ask, just say that the bloke is very poorly and needs quiet.” Striving for a hearty tone, Thomas went on, “Now, down here are the sink-room and the scullery, where you’ll be spending a _lot_ of your time….”

Once the new men had seen all the points of interest, Thomas took them to the mess, where the rest of the section was already gathered. “Rawlins, Widener, Plank,” he said, indicating them. “These are the new blokes. When we go on wards tomorrow, some of you will be in one ward with Rawlins and Widener, and the rest will be in the other with me and Plank. You all have the same rank, but for now, you should do what they tell you.”

“Hear, hear,” said Rawlins. “We four have been here a year—or close to it—so we know our way around pretty well.” Then he got them talking about why they had joined the RAMC. Thomas was unsurprised to hear that several of them—the two old men, speccy Drover, the shortarse, and another bloke who apparently had a bad chest—had been rejected from other services on grounds of physical fitness. 

“Got tired of being handed white feathers, didn’t I?” said Ericson, the chesty one.

“My older brother signed up on the fifth of August,” another said. “After he was killed, our mum said she couldn’t stand it if I was too—she only had the two of us. I promised her I wouldn’t join up, but once they started talking about conscription….” He looked defiant. “I’m not a coward, but I couldn’t do that to me own mum. I got our vicar to recommend me for this.”

No one said anything for a long moment. “Clever of you,” Thomas finally said. “There’s nothing now that’s completely safe, but this is better than some. We’ve only lost one, out of our old section.”

“Some sections haven’t lost any, in the last year,” Rawlins added quickly.

That was true, but there was also one that had lost six, to a shell-strike on stretcher duty—though two of those had lived at least long enough to be sent back to base hospitals; they might still be alive. 

“The only dangerous part is when you go forward to collect wounded,” Thomas explained. “And even then, a lot of the time, you’re only going as far up as the support trenches—more often than not, their own mates bring them back that far. It’s not too bad.” 

“Will we have to do that?” someone asked.

“Everybody takes a turn at it,” Thomas answered. There was no point hiding _that_ , either—with any luck, they’d be learning enough new things today that they’d have no opportunity to dwell on it. “It’ll be at least a couple of weeks before you pull that duty, though, and the Wardmaster tries to pick a quiet night for you when you’re first learning.” He went on to explain some more innocuous facts about the duty roster—how you usually rotated two or three weeks on wards with two or three weeks off, that off-wards work was usually lighter, the on-call system for receiving convoys, and things like that. 

After tea, they met up with Collins and Manning’s sections for drill—one of the things Thomas had noticed about drill, in their time at CCS 14, was that it seemed especially ridiculous if there were only a dozen of you doing it. They were drilling by squads, with the men from the old section leading, when the Wardmaster turned up. 

“Stretcher drill,” he said, lighting a cigarette. “Not a bad idea, I suppose.”

“Collins suggested it,” Thomas explained. He hadn’t been sure about it himself—having just come from training, the new men would surely remember how to do it—but Collins had brought him round on the idea. “Give them a chance to impress us a bit, before they go on wards tomorrow and find out how much they don’t know.” It would also give Collins and Manning some practice issuing orders, and allow everyone a chance to size up their new section-mates, before they started actually working. “And we didn’t want to leave them too much to their own devices the first day.”

The Wardmaster nodded. “It can be a fucking shock, this place.” 

“I’m getting a decent idea of their strength, too,” Thomas added. “I wasn’t sure about that heavyset bloke.” He nodded toward the barman, who was a fleshy and red-faced specimen. “But he’s strong as an ox, and holding up all right. So’s the really short one—but the other two in that squad, I’m not sure how they’ll manage a stretcher in the trenches.” They were within specifications, but decidedly undersized. “They’re getting worn out with four to a stretcher.”

“Hm,” said the Wardmaster. “East End lads?”

Thomas nodded. “Yeah.”

“Sometimes the runty buggers pick up a bit once they’ve been getting enough to eat for a while. Keep an eye on them.”

Thomas had seen that happen with hall-boys, but they were young enough they were still growing. “All right.” 

“If they can’t manage, we’ll have to work around it. We’ll be doing a lot of that before we’re through—the fucking War Office doesn’t think the RAMC needs A-Ones anymore.” A-One was the highest rating for physical fitness. “Any others you’re worried about?”

Thomas pointed out the asthmatic and the other older bloke, who seemed to be stiffening up a bit with the work. 

“Let’s hope they’re fucking clever,” the Wardmaster said. “It’s not too hard to find a place for a man who’s fit and dull, or weak and clever, but weak and dull’s a tough one. Anything else you’ve got planned for them?”

“Just getting them poked, for Captain Linwood’s blood grouping scheme,” Thomas said. 

The Wardmaster shuddered. “Now that gives me the fucking collywobbles. I like my blood where it is, not going round some other bugger’s veins.” With that, he stomped off to check in with Manning and Collins.

Collywobbles or not, the new Chief of Surgery wanted everyone tested, so after drill they reported to the surgical hut, where a bored-looking sergeant said, “Tunics off, right shirt sleeves rolled up. Quickly now.”

As they complied, someone said, “What’s this about, then?”

Another added, “We had our jabs before we crossed the Channel.”

“Blood grouping,” Thomas explained. “For transfusions. It’s new.” Captain Allenby had told him about it once, when he’d still been on night duty. Allenby was fairly keen on the project, and had wanted to help out with it, but Captain Linwood had rebuffed his offer. 

“What’s that?” asked Drover.

“If somebody loses too much blood, they can top him up with a bit from somebody else,” Thomas explained. “The trouble is, there’s different sorts—the blood groups—and if you get the wrong one, it kills you.” Captain Allenby had attempted to explain what was different about the different groups, but Thomas hadn’t been able to follow it. “They’ve known how to do transfusions, and how to test for blood groups, for a while, but there isn’t time to do the testing when somebody’s bleeding to death.”

Drover said, “So they’re checking what kind we have, in case we….”

“Not quite. They’ve just worked out that there’s one kind you can give to pretty much anybody. So Captain Linwood is making a list of who has that kind, and if a patient needs blood, he knows who to get it from. Plank’s done it,” he added.

“It’s not hard,” Plank said. “They stick a needle in your arm, with a tube that goes to the other bloke’s arm, and then you just sit there for about half an hour. Once you’re done, you get a cup of Bovril and a biscuit.” 

The sergeant, gesturing the first of the men—it was Ericson, the asthmatic—into the chair to be jabbed, added, “The Captain reckons it’s saved a few lives already.” He swabbed Ericson’s arm with alcohol. “The real bugger, on a busy night, is gonna sparing the men to give blood.” He inserted the needled and drew out a tiny sample of blood. “You’ve got to rest for a bit after, so all told, it ties up a man for about an hour—and they can only take about a pint per man, so you might need to bleed half a dozen men for one case.” He gave Ericson a bit of bandage to hold over where he’d been jabbed, and said, “Next.”

Drover got into the chair, and Thomas added, “Captain Allenby said that what they’d like is to be able to collect the blood ahead of time—before a big battle, say—but they haven’t worked out how to stop it going bad.” 

“Cor,” said the barman, shaking his head. “The things they come up with.”

#

“The new men seem like a good lot,” Rawlins said as he and Barrow walked back to the barn that night.

Barrow nodded. “I suppose. We’ll see tomorrow.”

Rawlins hesitated. “You might’ve put the wind up them a bit, talking about Lamble, and going up to the Front.” He wouldn’t have said it, but Barrow had asked him to help with things like that. He’d said that he’d asked the Wardmaster specially, to keep Rawlins in his section for that reason.

Rawlins was fairly sure that Barrow had just said that to make him feel better about not being promoted to corporal—not that he _wanted_ to be. Barrow wasn’t the type to make up a white lie like that. 

Barrow glanced at him. “You think?”

“Maybe. Some of them asked about it, at dinner.” He’d told them that Barrow hadn’t meant anything by it; it was just that he wasn’t afraid of anything. 

“Hm. I thought it might be better if they started getting used to the idea while it was still a ways off.” 

It took Rawlins a moment to realize he meant the idea of going up to the Front, not the idea of one of them being killed. “Maybe so,” he agreed. 

“With the push coming, they’ve got to be ready,” Barrow added. 

“Have you heard anything new?” They all heard things, of course—but Barrow was likelier than anyone to hear things that were actually _true_.

“He thinks it’ll be June,” Barrow said. 

“He” was the Wardmaster, of course. “Oh.” Rawlins had imagined Barrow hearing something about _whether_ the offensive was likely to take place here—not _when_ it was. “That gives us some time to get ready.”

Barrow nodded. “Some.” 

They reached the barn. Barrow went straight for his rocking chair—he’d bought it off one of the many French families who’d decided that, with a push coming, they’d rather take their chances somewhere else—and as soon as he’d sat down, Mittens began bouncing from rafter to rafter, then divebombed into Barrow’s lap, trilling. 

“What do you want?” Barrow asked him, as the kitten climbed up his tunic onto his favorite perch on Barrow’s shoulder. 

It was typical of Barrow, Rawlins thought, that even the cat adored him. When Mittens had first come to live in the barn, the rest of them had attempted to curry favor by offering sardines and dangling bootlaces for him to bat at, but the cat had only been interested in Barrow, who ignored him. Mittens had now warmed up to the rest of them, but Barrow was still his favorite. 

Barrow gave the cat a scratch under the chin, then lit a cigarette. “Has anybody fed this lazy animal?” he asked the room in general.

“I brought him some chicken,” Collins said, “but he hasn’t eaten it yet.”

“You hear that?” Barrow asked Mittens. “He’s the one with the chicken.” 

Mittens meowed and rubbed his head against Barrow’s jaw.

#

The new men settled in well enough. During their first weeks on wards, they did the same sorts of things Thomas and his group had done back when _they_ had been new—making beds, cleaning bedpans, serving meals, washing dishes. Thomas made a point of looking for opportunities to show them some of the more complicated duties—having one or another of them hand him things while he was doing dressing changes, for instances—and encouraged Widener and Rawlins, in the other ward, to do the same. 

Ward duties were routine enough for him now that he could keep an eye on the new men at the same time as he was doing his own work, getting an idea of their individual capacities. He learned, for example, that Hutchins, the barman, had a knack for distracting the patients during dressing changes or other unpleasantness, with questions about their lives and stories from his own pub-keeping days—but, if not reminded, would chat with the patients at the expense of other work. The little Cockney lads would take on anything that was asked of them without complaint, and needed a bit of watching to make sure they didn’t over-exert themselves unnecessarily. Babcock, the older gent with the bad back, was precise and methodical in his work, which was all right as long as it wasn’t something that needed to be done quickly. Drover, with the spectacles, was a quick learner, but had a decided tendency toward squeamishness.

These observations paid off when they were rotated off-wards, and Thomas was handed a list of jobs, with instructions to sort his men into them. Babcock, for instance, was the obvious choice to help Pharmacy Stores with inventory, and Hutchins would do well in the orderlies’ room—a duty Thomas had hated, when it was his turn—since he wouldn’t mind hearing or telling the same stories over and over again. Ericson and Drover went on clerical duties, and the Cockney lads—who weren’t much good at reading and writing—to the cookhouse, where the work was tedious but not too strenuous, and the cook could be relied upon to give them extra food between meals.

Halfway through the week, they had their first turn on a carrying-party, taking supplies to the collecting post and bringing a few patients back, and a few days later, they went again, this time the whole way up to the Aid Post. Thomas was a little surprised by how much busier the trenches were. There were new guns being hauled into place, and a new line of support trenches dug, between the old second and third lines. The Germans had noticed the activity, too, and were shelling a bit more than usual—not as much as they had on the worst nights Thomas had seen, like the one when Lamble had been killed, but more than would have been considered a quiet night, last summer. 

The new blokes bore up fairly well. Babcock was more phlegmatic than Thomas would have guessed, grumbling about the weight of his stretcher but not taking much notice of shell strikes, and Hutchins was flightier, frequently exclaiming things like, “That was a close ‘un!”, even when it wasn’t. The Cockney lads—Wallace and Eakins—struggled with the weight they were expected to carry, but stayed cheerful and alert, and were good at keeping their heads down. Drover came the closest of anyone to having real trouble, but after two or three unnecessary dives for cover, limited himself to flinching and swearing. 

Still, as Rawlins reported to Thomas, everyone was fairly relieved to go back on wards, since that meant they weren’t likely to be sent on any more carrying-parties for a bit. 

One morning, arriving on Men’s Surgical, Thomas found a familiar face—a young corporal called Booth, who he’d had on one of his work details, back at the CCS. Thomas had also, he remembered as he looked over the bloke’s chart, getting ready to do his dressing change, been witness to one of his “little chats” with Major Winthrop. Booth had lost his voice after a disastrous patrol, of which he had been the only survivor. The Lieutenant leading the patrol had been killed, along with two men, early on. Command then fell to Booth, the only NCO present, and he’d decided to proceed with their objective—Thomas forgot what it had been. Wire-cutting, probably. A machine-gunner had spotted them, and the rest of the patrol had been slaughtered, Booth hiding under their dead bodies until just before dawn, when he’d crawled back to the British line.

Winthrop had pointed out that it had been Booth’s orders—his voice—that had led to the deaths of the rest of the men, and that, fearing being in a position to give such an order again, his subconscious mind had settled on hysterical mutism as a solution: if he couldn’t talk, he couldn’t order more men to their deaths. 

Having this explained to him had brought back Booth’s voice—but it hadn’t done anything about the reason he’d stopped speaking in the first place. And now, according to the chart, he’d been brought in with a rifle wound to his foot. 

Accidental, the chart said. Well, Thomas certainly wouldn’t be the one to question it. He cut away the old dressing, depositing it in a bowl that Hutchins was holding for him, and examined the wound. “Bet that hurts,” he said. It was through the main part of the foot—not just a couple of toes, like some of them tried. He’d been willing to pay his pound of flesh. 

“It didn’t hurt much at first,” Booth said. “It’s worse now.”

It was worse because it was going septic—the whole foot was swollen, with red streaks going up the ankle. “This is going to hurt even more, I’m afraid,” he said, gesturing for Hutchins to hold the bowl under it before sloshing in a liberal amount of antiseptic. 

Booth let out a guttural, wordless cry, followed by a curse. 

“Sorry about that,” Thomas said. “Had to be done.” He couldn’t guess whether the surgeon would try to debride the wound—cut away the rotting flesh—or go straight to amputation, but even if it was the latter, slowing the spread of the infection would keep Booth from losing more of the leg than he had to. 

“I’m all right,” said Booth, breathing shakily. 

As Thomas went on cleaning the wound, Hutchins told Booth a story about a dog that came in to his pub with its master every day at six o’clock and drank its own half-pint of lager out of a saucer. Thomas had heard it at least half a dozen times before, and paid little attention, except to notice that it was doing its job in keeping Booth’s mind off his foot. 

Once he’d sopped up as much of the pus as he could, he packed the wound with lint and wrapped it loosely with a bit of gauze, explaining, “MO’s going to want a look at that when he comes round. We’ll wrap it up proper afterward.” 

He left Hutchins talking with the lad and went on to the next patient. It was only about an hour later that Captain Linwood came in for his rounds. If he’d had a choice, Thomas would have rather had one of the others—he didn’t know anything to Captain Linwood’s discredit , exactly, but his snubbing Captain Allenby was enough to make Thomas a bit suspicious of him. 

His suspicions proved justified when Linwood, after studying the chart and ordering Thomas to unwrap the foot, demanded, “How did this happen, Corporal?”

Fuck. “Bad luck, sir,” said Booth. “I was out on a patrol, and had to take cover in a shell-hole. As I was jumping in, my rifle got caught up in my webbing, somehow. It went off as I was trying to free it.” 

It wasn’t a bad story—unlikely, of course, but any explanation other than the obvious was going to be unlikely. If there really had been a patrol, and a shell-hole, it would be hard to say it _hadn’t_ happened that way. 

“Hm,” said Linwood. He looked Booth in the eye for a moment, then, mercifully, let it drop. “Quite a bit of infection here—I expect your boot was none too clean.” To Thomas, he added, “We’ll take him into theater this afternoon. Clean it and wrap it back up.” He wrote something on Booth’s chart moved on.

As Thomas was cleaning the wound—again—Booth asked, “Theater—does that mean he’s going to …operate?”

Thomas glanced at him. “Hutch, hold the chart so I can see it, would you?” Hutch did so, but the chart just indicated Booth’s place on the surgical schedule and that he was to receive nothing by mouth until then. “He didn’t say. Sometimes they take you into theater just to clean it more thoroughly.” 

“Do you think that’s what he’s going to do?”

Thomas glanced up the ward at Linwood, then back at Booth’s foot. The red streaks extended a bit further up his ankle now. “It’s hard to say. Likely he’ll have to see how it looks when he starts working on it.” 

Later, when Thomas got Booth ready to go into theater, the red streaks extended up to his calf. He wasn’t too surprised when Booth came back with a stump just below the knee. 

“That’s a real shame,” Hutchins said, as they settled him back into bed, still under the anesthetic. “Young chap like that.”

Thomas nodded. “Keep an eye out, when he comes round. See how he’s taking it.”

“Will do.” Hutchins hesitated. “Anything in particular I should _say_? If he takes it badly, I mean.”

“He’s going home,” Thomas said. “Try to get him to focus on that.”

For most of the rest of the afternoon, Thomas was occupied with trying to get some gruel down the neck of a man who’d lost most of his lower jaw, but he did notice Hutchins talking to Booth, for a fairly long time. 

The next morning, as they were heading to the ward after breakfast, Hutchins fell into step beside him. “Corp,” he said. “Can I talk to you about something?”

Feeling uneasy, Thomas nodded. “Sure. Let’s, uh, over here.” They went around to the side of the block, and Thomas lit a cigarette. “What’s on your mind?”

“That lad Booth.”

Thomas had been afraid of that. “What about him?”

“You said, if there was anything unusual, we should tell you about it,” Hutchins said. “And you’d decide if the Medical Officer ought to know.”

“Right.” He’d been speaking mainly of symptoms—orderlies spent more time with the patients than the MOs did, and might be quicker to notice any change, even if they weren’t sure what it meant—but he had a feeling it was a different kind of thing Hutchins was talking about now.

“And they said, in training, that if we had any reason think a man was…malingering, or anything like that, we’re to come forward.”

Thomas nodded. They did say that. Maybe, he hoped, Hutchins had just noticed there was something a little strange about Booth’s story. Maybe that was all it was.

“When I was talking to him yesterday, after he came round from his operation…I think he was saying that he shot himself. On purpose.”

 _Fuck_. “What did he say, exactly?”

“He was distraught, at first, about his leg,” Hutchins explained. “But then he asked about his patrol—if the rest of them had made it back all right. So I told him we don’t have any more of them here, if that’s what he was asking. And then he said that was all right, then. As long as they made it back, it was worth it.” He took a deep breath. “And then he said, ‘I’d do it again, if I had to.’”

That was certainly suggestive, but not actually a confession. “Sometimes they’re confused, when they first come round after an operation,” Thomas said. “He might not have known what it sounded like.”

“Yes, Corp,” said Hutchins. “But….”

“But?”

“I asked ‘im what he meant. I said it sounded like he was saying he shot himself on purpose.”

 _Fuck_. “What did he say?”

“He didn’t deny it. He just said he meant it, about doing it again.” 

Thomas took a deep drag from his cigarette, and then another one. “If you’re in that situation again,” he said carefully, “it would be better not to ask that question.”

“Yes, Corp. I—right then, I was a bit angry,” he admitted. “That he was taking up our time, the medical officers’ time, looking after him, when he did it to himself. I _wanted_ to turn him in, if he had done it.”

It didn’t seem like he wanted to now. “But something’s changed?”

“He started saying how he had to do it, _had_ to, and I got to thinking about what it’s like up there. I mean, I ain’t looking forward to the next time we have to go. And what would it be like to be stuck there, day in and day out? Wondering every minute if it’s going to be your last? Anybody could have a minute when he wasn’t thinking straight—couldn’t he?”

Thomas nodded.

“I _wish_ I hadn’t asked. I don’t want to get that poor lad in trouble. But I did, and now that I know….”

“You don’t,” Thomas said. “Know. You suspect. I did, too, just seeing the wound, and I’d bet Captain Linwood did as well. You have another reason to suspect, that’s all.”

“So I don’t have to do anything?” Hutchins asked hopefully.

Could they sit on this? Maybe, if the Captain wasn’t inclined to pursue it. And if Booth wasn’t incline to confess any further than he already had. 

But if either of those things wasn’t the case, it could come out that both of them had known more than they told. The serious shit, the Wardmaster had said, you pass up the chain before it sticks to you. 

“Don’t bring it up,” Thomas said. “If the Captain asks—if he comes right out and asks whether Booth said anything more about how he came to be hurt—then you’ve got to tell him what you heard. But if he wants to leave it lie, follow his lead.”

Hutchins nodded, looking a little uncertain.

Thomas added, “If it comes down to it, you did your duty telling me. You heard something that didn’t sound quite right, you told your Corporal, I said that it sounded to me like Booth was just confused from the anesthetic, but you did the right thing telling me, and that I’d take it from here. All right?”

“Yes, Corp.” He hesitated. “What if he says something else?”

“Don’t bring it up with him, either. If he volunteers anything, you should tell me.” He’d rather Hutchins didn’t, to be honest—but that _was_ what he should do. “If we’re lucky, he’ll go out on the morning convoy, and as long as no one asks any questions, it’ll all be out of sight, out of mind.” Even if Thomas did eventually make a report—and he should, really—it might very well end up lost in the shuffle.

They were not lucky. Thomas carefully did not pay any particular attention to Booth during the morning chores, but when he started on dressing changes, and worked his way around to Booth, he saw on the chart that Captain Linwood had ordered him kept for further observation.

That _could_ mean that he was worried he hadn’t gotten all of the infection with the first operation, and would have to amputate again—but he’d taken the leg not far below the knee, and the wound looked pretty clean to Thomas. “How does this feel?” he asked, swabbing the wound with disinfectant.

“Hurts less than it did,” Booth answered. 

“Good.”

“He told you, didn’t he?” Booth asked suddenly. “The bloke from yesterday.” 

Thomas glanced at him. “You should be careful what you say. A bloke could misunderstand.”

Booth didn’t take the hint. “I had to do it,” he said. “You understand, don’t you? It was just like the last time. The sh-shell, just as we were s-s-s-setting out.” 

He’d had the stammer for a bit, back at the CCS, when he’d first gotten his voice back. Thomas earnestly wished that he’d go mute again, before he could say anything even _more_ incriminating. 

Instead, he went on, “It would have ended the same way, if I hadn’t done something. I had to give them a r-r-r-reason to turn back. Before they were all k-k-killed. I _had_ to. And I’d d-d-d-do it again.”

He wasn’t going to keep his mouth shut; that much was clear. Once Thomas had finished the dressing changes, he went looking for the Wardmaster, but he was out—in a meeting with Major Thwait, one of the sergeants said. Thomas left a note saying he wanted to talk to him, urgently, and went back to the ward.

Shortly after he got back, Captain Linwood arrived for his morning rounds. Thomas took the precaution of making sure that Hutchins was out of sight in the sink room, and occupied himself with a patient across the aisle and a few beds down from Booth—where he would hear if Booth began confessing again, but Linwood would have to go out of his way if he wanted to speak to Thomas. That way, if the situation blew up in their faces, both Thomas and Hutchins could plausibly claim they had, of course, intended to report this news to the MO in charge of the case, but simply hadn’t yet found a good opportunity to do so. 

Fortunately, Booth did not say anything to Linwood except “Yes, sir,” and Linwood did not say anything to Thomas except to repeat the instructions from the chart, that he was to be kept for observation. Thomas deliberately did not ask what they were meant to observe. Infection, obviously. They were observing the stump for signs of infection. 

Thomas tried looking for the Wardmaster again at lunchtime, but he still wasn’t in. Finally, when Thomas and other orderlies were doing the patients’ tea, his clerk showed up to fetch Thomas. 

_Thank God_. All day, he’d been looking over his shoulder in case Linwood came back in and started asking questions. 

The Wardmaster took the news with a heartfelt, _“Fuck_ ,” and reached into his desk drawer for a bottle. “Who did he tell?” he asked as he poured himself a drink.

“Private Hutchins. One of the new men. And then he gave me some more details, while I was changing his dressing.”

“Fuck.” He gulped it. “Linwood already fucking suspects,” he said. “He told Major Thwait, Thwait asked me to look into it—we can’t keep this to ourselves.”

“I was afraid of that,” Thomas said. “How much trouble is he in?”

“He could end up in front of a fucking firing squad, son,” the Wardmaster said. “Here.” He dug out another glass from somewhere and poured Thomas a drink. 

Thomas knocked it back. “Is that…likely? I mean…Diggs could have, too.”

“Diggs was one of ours. Major Thwait takes my recommendations when it comes to our men. This’ll go to Booth’s CO. There’s no telling which way he’ll jump.”

Thomas hesitated. “He’s not well. Booth, I mean. We had him in the shell shock ward, back at the CCS.” He explained what had happened on Booth’s earlier patrol. “Even Major Winthrop could see the problem was he couldn’t stand getting men killed under his command again. But he didn’t actually help him, so he did this. Sacrificed himself, so the patrol could turn back.” 

“Aye,” said the Wardmaster. “The bugger of it is, there’s two ways that can look. One, he’s a sick man who should never have been sent back to the line. Two, he has a history of cowardice. The trouble with version one is, it means the Major fucked up.”

Thomas heard the wet snap of Kingston’s leg. “It wouldn’t be the first time.” 

“I know, son,” said the Wardmaster, gently. 

“And it wasn’t cowardly. If he really thought the new patrol was going to get killed—even if he only thought that ‘cause he’s not right in the head—what the fuck else was he supposed to do?”

“I know,” the Wardmaster repeated. 

“What are we going to do?”

“You’re not going to do anything,” the Wardmaster said. “I’m going to talk to Thwait again—see if I can convince him to encourage Linwood to drop it. You, avoid Linwood if you can. If he asks any questions, don’t lie, but don’t fucking volunteer anything.”

“That’s what I told Hutchins,” Thomas noted.

“You were right.” He dismissed Thomas back to the ward.

The rest of the afternoon passed without incident. Captain Linwood came in for afternoon rounds, but paid no particular attention to Booth, or to Thomas. Thomas began to hope that the Wardmaster had persuaded Thwait, and Thwait in turn had persuaded Linwood, to stop asking questions.

That hope was dashed immediately after dinner, when Thomas approached the Wardmaster to ask if there was any news. He shook his head, but pointed toward his office.

Once he’d poured them both a drink, the Wardmaster said, “Linwood’s already sent word to the fucking battalion commander. Thwait doesn’t like it much, but there’s nothing he could do.”

“Fuck.” Thomas took a large swallow of his drink. “What happens next?”

“The battalion commander sends an officer to investigate,” the Wardmaster said. “He might want to talk to you and Hutchins. Don’t lie.” 

He didn’t, this time, say not to volunteer anything. “Do I bring up Booth’s shell shock?” Even if the officer in question knew that Booth had been treated for it, he wouldn’t know that Thomas knew anything about it. 

“That’s the big fucking question,” the Wardmaster said. “You probably should, yeah. If they know for a fact he did it—if he fucking _confesses_ again—the only defense he’s got is that he’s loony.” 

Thomas nodded, thinking through the next few steps. “I suppose they’ll talk to Major Winthrop.” 

“Yeah, I reckon so. If he takes it like a man and admits he should never have sent the poor fucker back, it’ll probably turn out all right.”

Thomas thought about Major Winthrop, the moment after that wet snap. He’d been horrified by his mistake, Thomas would bet on it—but he hadn’t been horrified enough to admit anything, not until Thomas shamed him into it. “He won’t, on his own. Somebody’s got to convince him.” 

“You’re not doing that,” the Wardmaster said. “That is a fucking order, if it needs to be.”

Stung, Thomas stiffened his spine. “Yes, Sergeant.”

“With this fucking push coming, I need you where you are, son,” the Wardmaster added. “And we’ve already seen what Winthrop’s like when a corporal goes toe-to-toe with him. You are not sticking your neck out that far. Not now.”

Thomas nodded. He had a point—and it wasn’t like Thomas could be dramatically proved right, as Rouse had been. Booth had _already_ snapped. 

“If somebody needs to convince him, it needs to be a fucking officer.”

He was right about that, too. They both thought about it for a moment. “Captain Allenby?” Thomas suggested. He was the only officer Thomas could reasonably ask a favor of.

The Wardmaster shook his head. “He’s got nothing to do with the case. I don’t doubt he’d stick his nose in, if you asked him right, but Linwood already has it in for him. Two MOs at each other’s throats is another kind of trouble we don’t need when we’re getting ready for a push.” He poured himself another drink and stared at it for a moment. “There’s nobody at the CCS?”

Thomas shook his head. 

“Figured. You’d have tapped him for the other thing, if there was.” He sighed. “I’ll try Major Thwait again. He’s no fucking good at this kind of shit—politics—but I can walk him through it, if he’s willing.” 

Would he be willing? Thomas didn’t ask—he suspected he wouldn’t like the answer.

The Wardmaster leaned over and topped up Thomas’s drink. “Son, there may not be anything we can do here. I don’t like it any better than you do—it wouldn’t hurt anybody to let the poor fucker go, and he’s paid a high enough price for it already. But this is above my pay grade, and it’s sure as fuck above yours. I need you to be sensible, understand? Don’t do anything impulsive.”

“I understand,” Thomas said. He also understood that the Wardmaster was having doubts about his reliability, just now, and that that wasn’t good. “I just….” He thought about Peter, and his letter saying _I wasn’t very brave today_. His Captain at least _tried_ to help—it had gone spectacularly wrong, yeah, and got Peter killed. But at least he hadn’t just told him to buck up and get back to work. Who knew what Peter might have resorted to, if he hadn’t been given a chance to get away from the sound of the guns? “Somebody should try to help him, that’s all.”

“We are,” the Wardmaster pointed out. “We are fucking trying. All right?”

He nodded. “All right.”

The next day, Thomas put himself in Officers’ Surgical, giving Men’s Surgical to Widener and Plank—putting himself out of the way of temptation to get any more involved with the Booth situation than he already was. 

It was almost a miscalculation. He’d noted, somewhere along the line, that Booth was from the Duke of Manchester’s Own, but hadn’t thought anything of it—hadn’t even _considered_ that there might be strings he could pull outside of the RAMC, until Lieutenant Crawley came strolling into Officers’ Surgical, to talk to some friend of his who was on the ward.

It didn’t mean he was the officer they’d sent, of course—he could simply have come to visit. But Thomas busied himself making up an empty bed a few places down from Lieutenant Crawley’s friend. If there was one thing being a footman was good for, it was knowing how to eavesdrop without being noticed.

They started out talking about the Big Push, and how Lieutenant Crawley’s friend—a Lieutenant Carrington—would miss out on it, seeing as he no longer had any legs. Carrington tried to pretend that Crawley was the lucky one. Eventually, he got around to asking, “But you didn’t come all this way just to see me, did you?”

“No, unfortunately,” said Lieutenant Crawley. “I had to come and talk to one of my men. SIW, I’m afraid.”

Self-inflicted wound, that stood for. Did he mean Booth had confessed? Or just that Lieutenant Crawley believed he was guilty?

“Rotten luck,” Carrington said. “I almost had a deserter, right before this.” He nodded toward his stumps. “But his mates brought him back in time. It’s the push—it’s hard to blame them.”

“I thought his story was a little fishy,” Lieutenant Crawley admitted. “I wasn’t going to make waves—the wound seemed bad enough to be its own punishment—but somebody here caught it.” He shook his head. “My major sent me to look into it.”

He sounded sympathetic enough, Thomas thought. And he’d promised the Wardmaster he wouldn’t do anything impulsive—not that he wouldn’t do anything at all. Feeling the Lieutenant out on the subject, just a bit, wouldn’t be sticking his neck out. Not if he was careful. 

Thomas contrived to be standing near the door when Lieutenant Crawley was ready to leave, and “noticed” him then, bracing up and saying, “Sir.”

“Barrow,” he said. “I thought that was you. And a corporal now? Congratulations.”

“Thank you, sir. And you, as well.” He nodded toward Crawley’s sleeve, which showed he’d been made up to First Lieutenant since they’d last met. 

“Oh, yes,” Lieutenant Crawley said, a bit vaguely. “How are you keeping?”

“Not bad, sir,” he said. “I hear we’re in for a busy time before long, though.”

“I should think so. They haven’t told us when, yet, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“Yes, sir.” It hadn’t been, particularly. He considered his next move—he had to prolong the conversation somehow, give himself time to maneuver around to Booth. “It’s all very different from Downton, isn’t it? It seems like a dream.”

“It does,” Crawley agreed. “Funny you should mention it—I’m meant to visit there soon. If I get away before they cancel all leave, that is. Yorkshire in June—it’s hard to believe it still exists.” He started buttoning his greatcoat—it was a raw day, for May, and that gave Thomas an idea.

“Would you like a cup of tea, sir, before you go?”

“I’d love one, if it’s not any trouble.”

“I think I can manage,” Thomas said. 

He maneuvered Lieutenant Crawley into the scullery, where they kept a spirit stove for making tea for the officers’ wards—no lukewarm slop out of Dixies for them—and put the kettle on. 

“Do you get much news from Downton?” Lieutenant Crawley asked.

“Anna keeps me informed, sir,” he said, spooning tea into a pot. “Lady Edith’s driving, Lady Sybil’s training as a nurse.”

Lieutenant Crawley nodded. “Do you suppose she’s prepared for it? The kind of things she’ll see?”

That was an opening, maybe. “Were any of us?”

“I certainly wasn’t,” Lieutenant Crawley said, ruefully. 

“I spent the winter at a CCS,” Thomas went on. “We had nurses there. Young ladies. They rose to it. Of course, they have to prove themselves, to be posted overseas. They only send the best and bravest. Not like us men. We get sent here to sink or swim.”

“Yes,” said Lieutenant Crawley. “And not everyone is a strong swimmer.”

“No, sir,” Thomas agreed, pouring water from the kettle into a teapot. “They mostly had us working with the nervous cases, at the CCS. They didn’t want the ladies looking after them, in case they babied them too much. In a pitiful state, some of them were.” 

“I’m sure. One of my men—the one I came here to see—was treated for that sort of trouble. I wonder if it was the same place? Chap called Booth.” 

“Yes, sir,” Thomas said, pouring the tea into a cup. “I recognized him when I saw him here.” 

As Thomas handed him the teacup, Lieutenant Crawley met his eyes. “Did you?”

Thomas nodded. 

Crawley sipped at the tea. “That’s nectar. You know, when he came back—Booth, I mean—my sergeant wasn’t convinced he was quite recovered, from the trouble with his nerves.”

 _Obviously_ , Thomas thought. _Or he’d hardly have shot himself, would he?_ “I’m sure it’s not my place to say about that, sir,” he said carefully. “But I did get the impression, when I was there, that the psychiatrist—a Major Winthrop—was under a certain amount of pressure to get men back to the line quickly. And the number of patients that he was responsible for made it impossible for him to spend a great deal of time with any particular one.” 

“I see,” said Lieutenant Crawley. “Those sound like conditions in which even the most knowledgeable officer could make a mistake.” 

“Indeed, sir.” Thomas hesitated. He was fairly confident that he and Lieutenant Crawley were reading from the same page of the hymn-book, but the next bit was still a bit tricky, when he didn’t know how much Booth had told Lieutenant Crawley. If Booth _hadn’t_ confessed, he had to avoid putting the Lieutenant in a position where he’d be forced to inquire into what he’d told Thomas. “At the CCS, I gathered that his nervous troubles began—or became obvious, at least—after a patrol, in which everyone else was killed.”

“I think so,” Crawley agreed. “I was assigned to the platoon afterwards—their previous lieutenant was one of those killed—but that’s what I heard. It sounded fairly ghastly, in fact. And I believe that the night he…acquired his wound was his first time going out on a patrol since coming back from his treatment.”

That would certainly explain why he’d picked that occasion to shoot himself. But Thomas couldn’t comment on that, not if there was still, officially, some doubt whether he _had_ shot himself. “I noticed—having been involved with his care before—that he seemed preoccupied with the earlier patrol. Talking about it a lot.”

“Yes,” Crawley said. “He spoke of it to me, as well. In fact, I might go so far as to say he was mixing up the two, in his mind.” 

Thomas wasn’t sure _that_ was quite true, not from what Booth had said to him or Hutchins, but the more confused Booth was made out to be, the better, he supposed.

Lieutenant Crawley added, “For one thing, he was dreadfully relieved to see me alive.” Tossing back the rest of his tea, he stood up. “It may happen that I need to ask you in detail about any statements Booth made to you.”

That answered that question—if Booth had confessed, there’d be no need to look into what he’s said to anyone else. “Yes, sir.”

“I hope not,” he added. “The ambiguity of the circumstances surrounding his injury and his history of nervous troubles strike me as two good reasons to pursue the matter no further—but my battalion commander may see it differently. In the meantime, you might think back to when you cared for him at the CCS, and see if you recall anything else which could be relevant.”

“I will, sir,” Thomas agreed. 

Later, as they were leaving dinner, Thomas told the Wardmaster, “I found our officer.”

He looked confused for a moment—apparently it was one of those days when he’d started his drinking early—then said, “Oh—for the Booth bugger? Come and tell me about it.”

They reconvened, along with Jessop, in the Wardmaster’s office. Once Thomas had explained who Lieutenant Crawley was, the Wardmaster said, “From the fucking regiment? That’s perfect. Linwood can’t object to that.”

Thomas nodded. “It sounded like he’s going to urge the battalion commander to drop it—but if he doesn’t agree, he’ll pursue the shell shock angle.”

“Good,” the Wardmaster said, topping up their drinks. “You think he’s reliable, then, this Crawley?”

“He seems a sharp lad,” Jessop said, then corrected himself, “a sharp young officer, that is. I got a look at him while we were at the Aid Post. Barrister, isn’t he?”

“Solicitor,” Thomas said. A barrister would have been much more nearly acceptable to Carson. “He’s all right.”

The Wardmaster knocked back his drink. “If we’re lucky, he’ll take care of it from here on out, and we won’t have to fuck around with it anymore.”

They weren’t lucky. Two or three days later, Lieutenant Crawley turned up again. This time, Thomas was in Men’s Surgical, and while he was unfortunately not near enough to Booth’s bed to hear what they said—and there was nothing he could plausibly be doing in the vicinity—he noted that it was not an easy conversation. At one point, Booth’s voice rose enough for Thomas to hear him say, “I h-h-h-had t-t-t-t-to.” Not long after that, Lieutenant Crawley got up from the chair at Booth’s bedside, delivered a final remonstrance, and started for the door.

Thomas managed to intercept him there, his arms full of dirty linen and said, “Sir.”

“Corporal,” Lieutenant Crawley said, with a nod. 

He hadn’t really come up with a plan for how to pump the Lieutenant for information. Stalling for time, Thomas glanced back at Booth. Finally, he said, “Has anything been settled there, yet, sir?”

Crawley sighed. “I’m afraid not.” He hesitated. “In fact, is there someplace out of the way we could go for a smoke? If you have a moment, that is.”

“Of course, sir. Let me just get rid of this.” Once he had dumped the linen into the laundry bin, he showed Lieutenant Crawley out, taking him around to the far side of the building, where he went when he wanted a minute to himself. 

Mr. Matthew leaned up against the wall and took out a silver cigarette case, saying, “No joy from Major Winthrop, I’m afraid.”

Thomas had never seen Mr. Matthew smoking anything but an after-dinner cigar, but he supposed it wasn’t much of a surprise that he’d taken up the habit here. “No?” he asked, reaching for his own cigarettes.

“No. So I came back here hoping Booth would give me something else to hang a defense on.” When Lieutenant Crawley opened the case, Thomas saw that it had Lady Mary’s picture inside. “Instead, he essentially confessed.” He lit the cigarette, and said around it, “So I was hoping you might have another idea. My Major isn’t overly keen on pursuing this, but he’s got to have _some_ kind of a reason not to. Especially now that Booth’s not sticking to his story.”

Lighting his own cigarette, Thomas thought quickly. Unfortunately, he came up empty—he didn’t know what _could_ constitute a defense in this kind of situation. “The Wardmaster might be able to think of something,” he suggested. “Sergeant-Major Tully, that is.” 

“Hm,” Crawley said.

Thomas thought some more. “Can I ask what happened with Major Winthrop, sir?” Maybe there was a way they could try him again.

“Of course. I wrote to him, explaining what had happened and asking if Booth may have still been suffering from shell shock. He replied that he remembered the case well, and he was certain that Booth was completely sound when he left.”

That didn’t sound too bad. “Perhaps if he examined him again, sir?” Thomas hazarded.

“He also wrote that he was sure I didn’t realize what a grievous insult it was to suggest that he could mistake a sick man for a well one, or that he’d allow external pressures to compromise his professional judgment, so he’d overlook it this time.” Lieutenant Crawley puffed on his cigarette. “So I’d say he’s dug his heels in pretty firmly.”

Thomas scoffed, and muttered, “Might change his tune if somebody whispered ‘Kingston’ in his ear.”

Lieutenant Crawley asked what he meant by that, of course, so Thomas explained about the man who’d had a broken leg, and Winthrop insisted he hadn’t. “The good doctor thought he had shell shock when he didn’t, so I don’t see how he can pretend he couldn’t have made a mistake in the opposite direction. And it definitely rattled him when he realized how badly he’d got it wrong. First sign of real human feeling I’d seen in the blighter.” Remembering who he was talking to, Thomas added, “Begging your pardon, sir.”

Lieutenant Crawley made a dismissing gesture. “I can see how being reminded of it would humble him,” he said musingly, “but it’d be a difficult thing to slip into a conversation. I don’t remember anyone by that name in our regiment, so I can’t pretend I’m asking after him.”

“No, he were a Londoner,” Thomas said. 

Crawley puffed on his cigarette some more. “You were there with him when this chap’s leg broke the rest of the way through?”

“I was,” Thomas said. 

“Suppose you went with me, to talk to him? The sight of you might be enough to recall the incident to his mind.”

That could work. Thomas nodded slowly.

“We’d come up with some excuse—you were involved with his care there, and here, so…it doesn’t need to be particularly plausible. In fact, it may even help things if he sees through it—if he knows that I know that his professional judgment isn’t as impeccable as he pretends.”

“In fact,” Thomas suggested, “if the poor bloke ends up in front of a court-martial, who’s to say the other story won’t end up being dragged out in the bargain?”

“It could,” Lieutenant Crawley agreed. “Will you be able to get away? If I can borrow a motor from somewhere, it won’t take long. A couple of hours.”

“I expect I can manage,” Thomas said. He wasn’t due for an afternoon off for a while, but he could speak to the Wardmaster, and— _fuck_. “Actually, sir, it’s going to be difficult,” he said. He could pretend he needed the time off for something else—but what? And if he was found out…well, he wasn’t sure what the Wardmaster would do, but he was certain he wouldn’t like it. “I had forgotten, but the Wardmaster specifically ordered me not to confront Major Winthrop about this matter.” 

“Oh,” said Lieutenant Crawley, “damn. I’m not sure I’d dare countermand the order of a Master-Sergeant in my own regiment, let alone a different Corps. He’s not sympathetic, then?”

“No, he is,” Thomas said. “He just doesn’t want me risking my stripes this close to the Push.” He thought for a moment. “Do you need to get back soon, sir?”

“No, I have the afternoon for this—we’re in rest camp. Why?”

“The Wardmaster might come round, if we explain you’re the one doing the actual confronting, sir,” Thomas said. “Or he may have some other idea of how to remind the Major about Kingston. I don’t know if he’s free, but we could go and check. I’d just need to nip back inside and leave someone else in charge.”

Lieutenant Crawley agreed to this plan, and a few moments later, Thomas was leading him across the station. “If the Wardmaster is in his office, it’s probably best I go in first, sir, and…explain things.” Given the Wardmaster’s feelings about “ruperts,” Thomas didn’t think he ought to spring one on him unawares. “And, er, just so you know, his language may not be quite what you’re used to.”

Lieutenant Crawley gave him an amused look. “I’ve been a soldier for nearly two years now, Barrow—I’m quite accustomed to the Anglo-Saxon monosyllables.” 

Right. Thomas still thought of him as belonging to Downton. “Right you are, sir. I’m not sure what I was thinking.”

“It’s all right—it’s very strange, isn’t it, seeing people here that one knows from somewhere else?”

“It is indeed, sir,” Thomas agreed. They walked on for another moment, and Thomas thought of something else he ought to warn Lieutenant Crawley about, it being well past noon and creeping close to tea-time. “Another thing, sir. If he offers you a drink—the Wardmaster, I mean—I shouldn’t recommend trying to keep up with him. No one can.” 

“Duly noted,” said Lieutenant Crawley.

For lack of any better ideas, Thomas decided to stash Lieutenant Crawley in the linen room, while he went off to beard the Wardmaster in his den. He found the office door partway open, which was a good sign, and heard no shouting or swearing coming from behind it, which was also a good sign. Once he’d knocked, announced himself, and been admitted, he found the Wardmaster seated at his desk going over paperwork. 

“What is it, son?”

“Lieutenant Crawley’s here, about the Booth matter,” Thomas explained. “He’s hit a bit of a snag, and we were hoping you’d have some ideas about a way round it.”

“What kind of a fucking snag?”

“Major Winthrop isn’t being very cooperative.” 

“What a fucking surprise.”

Thomas added, “And now Booth has, in the Lieutenant’s words, essentially confessed.”

“Merciful buggering fuck. Anything else?”

“Crawley says the major of the battalion isn’t particularly eager to pursue it, but he needs some kind of excuse not to.”

The Wardmaster sat back in his chair. “Well, that gives us _something_ to fucking work with.” He started buttoning up his tunic. “All right, bring the bugger in, if you fucking must,” he said, giving the room a quick scan that Thomas had little difficulty recognizing as making sure there was nothing obviously incriminating in view. 

Thomas went back to fetch Lieutenant Crawley, and found him in conversation with Corporal Ludlow, who was linen-wallah at the moment, and clearly a little perturbed to have found an officer lurking in his area of responsibility. “Ah,” Thomas said, “there you are, sir. The Wardmaster is ready to see you.”

“Very good,” said Lieutenant Crawley. “Ah, good luck with the bolster-cases,” he added to Ludlow, and escaped. As they walked down the hall, he explained, “I’m afraid he got the impression I was here about some missing linen, and nothing I said could quite convince him otherwise.”

“We don’t get many officers in this building, sir,” Thomas said, in explanation. Officers’ country was on the other side of the ward-huts, in what had been the headmaster’s house when this was a school. “Here we are.”

Thomas had wondered whether the Wardmaster would actually stand up when Lieutenant Crawley entered—he was supposed to, technically, never mind that he’d been in the Army when the officer was in nappies—but the Wardmaster had solved that problem by just-so-happening to already be on his feet when they arrived. 

Fortunately, Lieutenant Crawley also grasped the delicacy of the situation. He opened by saying, “Master-Sergeant, thank you for letting me drop in on you. I’m sure you’re very busy,” thus signaling his understanding that he wasn’t the one in charge here.

That settled, the Wardmaster invited them to sit—Thomas was unable to avoid thinking of what Carson would say, if he knew that Thomas was sitting in the presence of the future Earl of Grantham—and Lieutenant Crawley began explaining the latest developments in the situation, concluding with, “Corporal Barrow explained the matter with Kingston, back in the winter, and we both thought that reminding him of it might have the effect we’re looking for, but we haven’t got any good ideas for how to pull it off, so to speak.”

The Wardmaster gave Thomas a look of great skepticism.

“We did think of the obvious,” Thomas said primly, “but I explained I’ve been expressly forbidden from doing that very thing.” 

“I’m glad you fucking remember,” the Wardmaster said. “All right, let’s think about this.”

In due course, they moved over to the chairs by the fireplace, and the Wardmaster brought out the bottle of Armagnac. Thomas watched Lieutenant Crawley suppress any show of surprise at its quality, and also thought that, at this point, Carson would be spinning in his grave if only he was dead. He was likely having palpitations without knowing why.

“The thing is,” Lieutenant Crawley said, holding out his glass in response to the Wardmaster’s tipping the bottle in his direction, “the Kingston situation is, in fact, entirely germane. If Booth were to offer his nervous condition as a mitigating circumstance, it’s quite likely that Major Winthrop would be called to give his medical opinion. At that point, if I were the Prisoner’s Friend—and I very well might volunteer for it, if it comes to it—the best move I could make would be to cast doubt on the Major’s professional judgment. But he’s already got his back up, and if I try to explain that, he’s likely to think I’m threatening him.”

 _Because you are_ , Thomas thought, but managed not to say—he was doing a better job of avoiding refills than Lieutenant Crawley was, but then, he had a great deal of practice. 

“Aye,” said the Wardmaster. “He’s a touchy bugger, by all accounts. I’d say work around him, if we could, but he’s the only psychiatrist in the fucking Fourth Army Area. I checked.”

They went round and round on the subject for close to an hour, but in the end, not even the Wardmaster could think of a solution other than the obvious one. “I suppose,” he finally said to Thomas, “you’d know how to play it without getting yourself into trouble. And you,” he said to Lieutenant Crawley, “would do all the talking?”

“Absolutely,” Crawley said, pronouncing it carefully. “He could just stand there with a look of silent reproach. Like Marley’s ghost. Don’t you think that will work?” he asked Thomas.

Thomas was fairly sure that Marley’s ghost had talked, but said only, “I believe it would, sir.” Honesty—and the desire to cover all his angles—compelled him to add, “Of course, if the Major asked me a direct question, I’d have to speak, but not otherwise.”

“If he does ask you any fucking questions,” the Wardmaster said, “you say as little as fucking possible. ‘Yes, sir’ if you can get away with it. You know the drill.”

“I do,” Thomas acknowledged. 

“What’ll you say if he asks you if you think Booth was still ga-ga when he left?”

That was an easy one. “It’s not my place to say about that, sir,” Thomas recited. 

“How are you going to bring up Kingston?”

That was a trick question. “I’m not.” He hesitated. “I did wonder if I might be able to get away with asking if he’s heard anything. Whether he’s walking again.”

The Wardmaster shook his head. “You were right the first time, son.”

Thomas had thought as much. 

They decided on tomorrow afternoon for the operation—the Wardmaster stipulated that Thomas had to be back in time for the evening convoys, and Lieutenant Crawley wanted to do it as soon as possible, lest his regiment be returned to the Front ahead of schedule. 

Lieutenant Crawley turned up the next day in a very battered French motorcar. Thomas was relieved to see it was driven by the Lieutenant’s batman, a man named Davis. Thomas wasn’t sure where he’d have been expected to sit if Lieutenant Crawley was driving, but in the circumstances, it was plain he was meant to be up front with the driver. 

Although Lieutenant Crawley did end up leaning forward, thrusting his head and shoulders between the two front seats, to talk strategy as they went. He’d rather cleverly sent a message ahead telling Major Winthrop to expect him, but left no time for a reply. Thomas was able to name the places he’d be mostly likely to be found, thus side-stepping the necessity of asking anyone who might have been instructed to say that the Major had no time to meet with Lieutenant Crawley. 

They found him in the second place on Thomas’s list, a little room in D block where he wrote up his charts and case notes. “Major—I’m Lieutenant Crawley,” he began.

“Yes,” Winthrop said, still writing on the chart in front of him. “I’m sorry you came all this way, but there’s really nothing I—” When he finally looked up from what he was doing, the effect was immediate. Not dramatic—just a slight backward movement of his head, and a draining of color from his face—but immediate. 

One point for Marley’s Ghost, then.

The Major recovered himself and continued, “I’m not sure what I can add.”

“I understand,” Lieutenant Crawley said. “But it is looking as though, if the matter comes to a court-martial, nervous debility would be the defense. In that event, you’d likely be called to give medical evidence.”

“I see,” said Winthrop. His eyes flicked up to Thomas. “If it did come to that, I would, of course, need to examine him again.” 

“Naturally,” Lieutenant Crawley agreed. 

“It’s very unfortunate, of course, if he did harm himself,” the Major continued. “He showed no sign of that behavior here. Just the, ah, hysterical mutism.” He glanced at Thomas again. “Which cleared up fairly quickly, once I was able to explain to him the psychological mechanism which caused it.”

“Yes,” Lieutenant Crawley said. “I find that very interesting. Let me see if I understand it correctly—in essence, he blamed his voice for the loss of his patrol? Because he spoke the orders which led to their deaths?”

“In layman’s terms, yes. All subconsciously, of course. It’s what we call a ‘defense mechanism’, against the overwhelming guilt that he felt over what happened to his comrades. By losing the ability to speak, he could avoid having to give such an order again.”

“Hm,” Lieutenant Crawley said. “But then he was returned to the line, and in due course he was sent out on another patrol, where he could very well have been called upon to give such an order. So the defense didn’t work.”

“No,” Major Winthrop agreed. “It was never a rational process, so one wouldn’t expect it to work. The goal of treatment in these kinds of cases is to remove the defense mechanism and then confront the mental conflict which created it.”

“I see. And can you help me to understand what that mental conflict was, in Booth’s case?”

Thomas thought it was fairly obvious what the conflict was, but was curious to hear what Winthrop would say about it.

“Well, the conflict between his military duty, to accomplish the objective of any given operation, with the natural human impulse to preserve the safety and well-being of one’s friends and associates,” Winthrop said. “And one’s self, of course. I’m sure you’ve felt that conflict yourself.”

“I have,” Lieutenant Crawley admitted. “It’s a very difficult thing, sending men into danger.”

“It must be,” Major Winthrop agreed. Thomas wondered if he didn’t realize that, when he certified his patients fit to return to duty, he was doing exactly that. “But most men—like yourself—are able to resolve the mental conflict and do their duty.”

Lieutenant Crawley nodded. “So that would be the final step in the treatment? First remove the defense mechanism, then confront the mental conflict, and finally, resolve it?”

“Correct.”

“And Corporal Booth resolved his conflict?”

Major Winthrop hesitated. This time, he didn’t look at Thomas—he looked everywhere _else_ , instead. “I believed that he had. That’s why I certified him as fit to return to active duty.”

“It seems to me that it would be a very difficult conflict to resolve,” Lieutenant Crawley pointed out. “I’m not sure I could put my hand on the Bible and testify that I had resolved it myself. Mostly, I try not to think about it. I suppose that’s a defense mechanism, as well?”

“In a way,” Major Winthrop said. “But it’s a, for lack of a better word, normal defense mechanism, while something like hysterical mutism is a pathological one.”

“Suppose that a man had put aside a pathological defense mechanism, but not entirely resolved the mental conflict that produced it,” Crawley said musingly. “And then he was put into a situation which reminded him strongly of the situation in which his defense mechanism arose. Might he develop another pathological defense mechanism?”

The Major hesitated. “He might. I wouldn’t want to speculate about whether it had or had not happened in any particular case.” 

“Of course. I suppose if I were explaining it to a jury—I was a solicitor before the war, you see, so I think in those terms—I might suggest that it’s a bit like, say, if the man had broken his leg, and it wasn’t allowed to heal fully. It could easily break again, even under a relatively minor stress, which would be quite safe for a healthy limb.”

 _Oh, well fucking done, Mr. Matthew_ , Thomas thought, as Major Winthrop looked up at him sharply. Thomas kept his face blank, but gave a minute nod. _Yes, you fucker, he knows_. 

“Do you think,” Lieutenant Crawley continued innocently, “that such a comparison would help a panel of laymen to understand?”

Major Winthrop swallowed hard. “Yes,” he said carefully. “I would say that the comparison is…very apt.”

Thomas rather thought he could have left it there, but Lieutenant Crawley twisted the knife a bit. “And I could further say that the unresolved mental conflict could be quite difficult for even an expert to spot. Just as an expert could easily overlook a partially broken leg.” He paused significantly. “I suppose. Before I tried that one out in court, I’d want to look into how readily a medical professional _could_ overlook a thing like that.” 

“Of course,” Major Winthrop said. He spent a moment busily tidying the papers on his desk, and avoiding looking at Thomas. Finally, he did look at him, and said, “Corporal…Barrow, is it?”

“Yes, sir,” said Thomas.

“I have to admit I’m a little curious what you’re doing here.” 

That wasn’t a direct question, so Thomas kept his fucking mouth shut, as ordered. After a moment, Lieutenant Crawley said, “Corporal Barrow has been looking after Corporal Booth, since his injury. I asked him to come along in case there was anything he could share with you about how Booth is doing. Particularly since he has some experience with your methods of treatment.”

“I see.” Winthrop tidied his papers again. “And what is your professional opinion of the case, Corporal Barrow?”

Thomas resisted the impulse to say that his professional opinion was _you really fucked the dog, sir_. “I’m sure it’s not my place to say, sir.”

“Please,” said Major Winthrop. “I’m eager to hear your thoughts.”

Fuck. Thomas thought very carefully before saying, “Well, sir, I don’t know very much about these things, but it seems like an unresolved mental conflict would be a lot easier to miss than a broken leg.” Major Winthrop drew in a breath, and Thomas hurried on before he could say anything. “And Corporal Booth could well have died from an injury like that—blood loss, infection, shock.” Kingston could have died from any of those things, too. “If he’d been thinking clearly, he’d have realized that.” Just as Winthrop might have realized there was something physically wrong with Kingston, if he’d thought clearly and not allowed himself to be distracted by righteous indignation over having his judgment questioned by a mere corporal, and one with a dreadfully working-class accent to boot. 

Major Winthrop nodded slowly, managing to look both annoyed and chastened at the same time.

Satisfied that he’d made his point, Thomas moved on. “And—with the understanding that I’m only speaking as a layman who’s seen a number of these cases—I’d say he hasn’t seemed to be thinking too clearly since he came in to the station with his wound, sir.” For one thing, if he’d been thinking clearly, he’d have realized that the best thing he could do was stick to his story. 

“What have you observed, that gives the impression he’s not thinking clearly?”

“He’s said several times, in my hearing, that his injury—however he got it—saved the rest of his patrol from being killed, and that he’d accept it again, even knowing that he’d lose his leg. A man who was well in his mind might sacrifice himself to save his mates, but as far as I know, his patrol wasn’t in any particular danger at the time of his injury.”

“We weren’t,” Lieutenant Crawley added. “No more than any patrol.” 

He hadn’t been asked a question, but Thomas—with a mental apology to the Wardmaster—added, “If he did hurt himself, he thought he was doing it to save them. I don’t call that cowardice, sir. I won’t say it’s rational, but it isn’t cowardly.”

Major Winthrop rubbed his chin. “That does cast a different light on the situation. And he’s expressed this motivation consistently?”

“Yes, sir.”

“He said it to me, as well,” Lieutenant Crawley added. 

“Well,” said Winthrop, “as I said, I would have to examine him again before I could give an official medical opinion. But it does sound as though he most likely suffered a relapse of his nervous difficulties, under the strain of going out on a patrol again.”

After that, it was pretty much over, though Major Winthrop and Lieutenant Crawley sparred a bit more about the next moves—Winthrop was keen to have Booth sent back to the CCS so that he could examine him. Thomas thought that would be a bad idea, as Winthrop might reverse direction as soon as Marley’s Ghost was out of his sight, but he didn’t say anything, and Lieutenant Crawley countered with the suggestion that Winthrop come to the 47th—because Booth was still recovering from surgery, of course. (In fact, patients were usually considered ready to be moved within a day or two of an amputation, but Thomas supposed Lieutenant Crawley might not know that—and even if he did, it wasn’t the point.) 

They settled on Major Winthrop writing a letter in which he explained his newly-developed position on the case, with the caution that it was tentative pending examination of the patient—should a formal diagnosis be required. “Excellent,” said Lieutenant Crawley. “We’ll just stroll the grounds while you write it. Very pleasant spot you have here.”

Thomas suspected that Major Winthrop had not been thinking of writing the letter immediately, but he acquiesced, and Thomas and Lieutenant Crawley began their stroll.

Given the choice, Thomas would have left the Lieutenant to his own devices and gone in search of a cup of tea and a bit of gossip, but he supposed it wasn’t too bad of a way to pass the time. With summer almost upon them, the trees were blooming, and the grass between the graveled paths was green and lush. If you managed to avoid looking at the wounded, you could almost think there wasn’t a war. 

They walked past a work party, most of them in hospital blues, setting plants in a flower bed. Lieutenant Crawley gave them a curious look, and Thomas explained, “Nervous cases, I expect, sir. Wholesome work in the out-of-doors; supposed to be good for them.”

“Oh.”

“Most of what we did with the patients, when I was here in the winter, was leading them on work parties. We graveled most of these paths, and painted a couple of those buildings.” He indicated them. 

“I suppose it makes a nice change, to create something instead of destroying it for a change,” Crawley mused. Thomas decided not to mention the grave-digging—no need to spoil his illusions. “Good God, is that a _tennis court_?”

“It is, sir.” Thomas had led them toward the side of the grounds that had the parade-ground and tennis court, rather than the cemetery. 

“How much use does that see, I wonder?” Lieutenant Crawley said.

“Oh, I think you’d be surprised, sir, how many tennis fans there are among the other ranks. When the nurses get a tournament going, it’s standing-room-only for spectators.”

“I see,” Lieutenant Crawley said, amused. “Well, I suppose it does no end of good for morale.”

“Indeed, sir.”

They crested a small hill, and stood looking out over the farms and village below the station grounds. “It really is very pleasant here,” Crawley observed. “Reminds me a bit of Yorkshire, in fact.”

“I suppose there’s something in that, sir,” Thomas agreed. It was farming country, after all.

“As bad as all this is, at least we know home’s still there,” Crawley added. “Imagine being one of the French Army chaps, from a village that’s already been bombed off the map. Even when it finally ends, they won’t be able to go home.”

Thomas nodded, carefully not thinking about where he’d go, when it finally ended. If it ever did. 

“Did you know, Cousin Robert—Lord Grantham, I mean—is still saying he’d like to be sent over here?”

Thomas wondered if Lieutenant Crawley was alluding to the words Thomas had had with his lordship on the subject, before leaving for the Army himself. “I did not, sir,” he said.

“He has some sort of Home Service post—largely honorary, I think—so he’s in uniform, but….” He shook his head. “It doesn’t seem to be all bluster, either. He’s pulling every string he’s got, trying to get ‘properly back in the Army.’ He can’t know what he’s asking for, and I feel I ought to tell him, somehow, but…there aren’t any words for it. Not really.”

Thomas chewed the matter over for a moment before deciding that most of what he wasn’t thinking wasn’t too impertinent to say. “I’ve thought the same, sir, when it comes to William—the other footman at Downton. He promised his father he’d wait to be called up, but apparently he’s quite keen. I’ve often thought I ought to warn him. I’ve sat down to write the letter once or twice, but I can’t sort out how to begin.” Besides, unlike Lord Grantham, William was likely to end up in France even if he _did_ come to understand that he shouldn’t want to. And William probably wouldn’t believe anything he had to say on the subject anyway.

A short while later, they collected the letter from Major Winthrop. It was sealed in an envelope, and as they walked to the motor, Lieutenant Crawley said, “With any luck, this’ll be the end of it.”

“I hope so, sir,” Thomas said. “Do you think it’s likely?” It could still come to a court martial.

Lieutenant Crawley nodded. “As long as he wrote what we discussed, it should be enough to make it come out right.” 

Thomas dared to say, “Shall we stop at the 47th and steam it open, sir?”

Lieutenant Crawley chuckled. “Tempting, but we’d better not. I daresay we’ve pushed things far enough for one day.”

As they got into the motor, Thomas reflected that, looked at a certain way, he and Lieutenant Crawley—he and the _future Earl of Grantham_ , in fact—had just conspired to cover up a crime. Not a crime either of them had committed, but still. He wondered if Bates and the present Earl had anything like that between them.

A day or two later, Lieutenant Crawley returned to the 47th to say his farewells to Booth, before he was sent back to Base, and from thence to Blighty and a medical discharge. He explained, when Thomas invited him into the ward scullery for another cup of tea, that his Major had thought it best to spare Major Winthrop the embarrassment of admitting in a court-martial that Booth’s return to the line had been a mistake. 

“That,” Thomas said carefully, “sounds like a satisfactory result for all concerned, if it’s not impertinent of me to say.” Typical that the Major would care more about another Major having to admit in public he’d—to borrow Rouse’s phrase—fucked the dog, than about Corporal Booth being on trial for his life, but he supposed Booth would be glad to put it all behind him, whatever the reason.

“Not least for us,” Lieutenant Crawley said. “I do believe we did the right thing, but I’ll be glad if I don’t have to go out on a limb like that again.”

His tone was jocular, but Thomas wondered if there was a bit of a warning in it—that he’d better not count on Lieutenant Crawley for any more favors in future. “As will I, sir.”

#

A couple of weeks later, Matthew was at Downton Abbey. It was as surreal as he’d expected, seeing that enormous house standing more empty than not, and grown men and women with nothing more important to do than taking people’s coats or bringing them cups of tea.

William was on hand to open the door for him, and Carson to show him into the library. “I see William’s not been called up yet,” Matthew noted. 

“Not yet, sir,” Carson said, “though I fear it could be any time now.”

The library was empty—the ladies, presumably, were still getting dressed for dinner. “Speaking of footmen, I saw Thomas not long ago.” 

“Did you, sir?”

“At the Dressing Station,” Matthew explained, although Carson had not sounded particularly interested. “There was a difficult situation with one of my men, and Thomas was rather helpful.”

Carson harrumphed. “I have been given to understand that the war has improved him, sir.”

“It’s difficult to imagine this war improving anyone,” Matthew noted, reminding himself that Carson couldn’t possibly know what he was saying. No one could know what it was like, who hadn’t been there. “But I get the impression they quite rely on him, there.”

“I suppose, sir,” Carson said archly, “in war, one must do all sorts of things that one would rather not.”

Matthew had been the butt of a number of sly remarks from Carson during his early visits to the Abbey, and suspected that the terrible thing he was alluding to was _being forced to rely on Thomas_ , but it seemed best to pretend he hadn’t noticed. “It does seem quite terrible work—even worse than the hospital here, as the patients come in directly from the trenches. But the Master-Sergeant—the man in charge of the orderlies—has great confidence in him.” There had been a definite undercurrent, in the meeting with Master-Sergeant Tully, that he was dropping everything to discuss their problem—not to mention sharing his excellent liquor—not because an insignificant subaltern had asked him to, but because _Corporal Barrow_ had. “That sort of thing can make a hard job feel a bit easier.”

Was it Matthew’s imagination, or did Carson go even stiffer than usual, as that barb hit home. “Doubtless, sir. Will there be anything else?”

With a glance around the library—as far from the chaos and filth of the trenches as anything on Earth—Matthew said, “Thank you—I have everything I need.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Deliberately injuring oneself in order to escape the front line was a capital offense in the British Army of the Great War; however, no men were actually executed for it. The online encyclopedia First World War says that 3,894 men were convicted of this offense and imprisoned (https://www.firstworldwar.com/atoz/siw.htm). It’s impossible to say how many more cases occurred in which officers and medical staff looked the other way—or the men died of their wounds before they could be court-martialed. 
> 
> Per the article, the most damning piece of evidence in such a case was if a British bullet was found in the wound; Thomas’s canonical strategy of getting the enemy to shoot him in the hand may reflect knowledge or experience of cases in which the offender/victim was caught.


	16. Chapter 13:  June-July, 1916

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Big Push arrives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings for significant military violence and medical gore—the Battle of the Somme is a mass-casualty event. There are also two or three things that could use specific warnings, but even saying what they are is a bit spoilery, so check the endnotes if you want to know.

Over the next weeks, there was a slow, steady ratcheting up of tension. The roads going past the station seemed as busy as London streets, almost, with regiments marching and transport convoys taking artillery, ammunition, and supplies to the Front. The rest camp had doubled in size again, swollen with new men—some conscripts fresh from England, some veterans brought down from Flanders for the Push. Many of the latter were fairly pleased to be here, where there were still trees and grass and buildings that hadn’t been bombed to rubble, and making the most of the time they had.

The station received vast deliveries of supplies—vast enough that Thomas’s section was sometimes pulled off ward work to help unload and stow them. Patients were coming in steadily: the Front was fairly quiet, waiting with breath held, just like the rear was, but the sheer number of men passing through meant plenty of injuries, from accidents, patrols, and enemy shelling—the latter, more likely than ever to hit something alive, with men so thick on the ground. They were moving them out fairly briskly, though—anything requiring observation or convalescence sent rearward, anything minor returned to the line as soon as it started to heal cleanly, and the greatest danger of infection was past.

One day in mid-June, Captain Allenby told Thomas that all leave for officers had been suspended. “That means it’s not long to wait now,” he said. “Next, we’ll get orders to clear the wards—that’ll mean it’s starting in a few days.”

But the order to clear the wards didn’t come, and men and materiel continued to pour in. 

It was almost the end of June when the tension finally broke. Major Thwait called a parade, for just after breakfast, and once they had saluted and been put at ease, said, “Gentlemen, as many of you will no doubt have guessed, we are building up for a push.”

There was a sort of gasp at that, though no one could have been surprised. A few of the new blokes tried to start up a cheer, then subsided into embarrassed silence when no one else picked it up.

Once they were quiet again, the Major continued, “This is to be the largest and most important battle of the war—in fact, the largest in which British troops have ever fought, throughout our nation’s great history. It will involve more troops, more guns, more ammunition than any battle that has ever been fought. If all goes well, it will go down in history as the beginning of the Allied victory. And we, just as much as the fighting men, have a vital part to play in the success of this great endeavor.”

Major Thwait paused. This, Thomas thought, was where he’d expected the cheer to go. Finally, a few people humored him, and he moved on. “Here, then, is what we can expect. The preliminary bombardment begins today—any moment now, in fact—and will continue until Thursday morning, when the infantry is scheduled to begin their advance.”

Thursday. Christ. Six days away. Everyone started murmuring a bit, and behind Thomas, someone said, “Thank God we’re in the R-A-M-bloody-C.”

“During the bombardment, we can expect moderate casualties, from shortfalls, artillery accidents, and, of course, enemy retaliation. Master-Sergeant Tully will explain the adjustments to the duty roster during this time.”

Thomas looked at the Wardmaster, who was standing behind Major Thwait’s shoulder. He looked grim. 

“We will be busy, and emotions will be running high in anticipation of the attack, but I expect each of you to keep to your assigned periods of rest and to take regular meals, so that we may be well-rested and well-nourished at the commencement of the infantry advance—after which we can expect to be considerably busier.”

There was another murmur at that. They all knew what “busier” meant. Up to their elbows in blood and guts.

“The attack will begin at dawn, but it is anticipated there will be little enemy resistance in the morning, as most of the enemy’s front line will have been eliminated by the bombardment. There may be some casualties from close combat with small groups of survivors. Additional men will be placed at the Regimental Aid Posts to receive these casualties, and bearer sections to move them rearward as necessary.”

“Those poor sods are in for a day of it,” someone nearby said. 

The Major continued, “It is likely that we will also receive wounded prisoners—perhaps even more of them than of our own men. Let me remind you that, once they have laid down their arms and surrendered into His Majesty’s custody, they are to be treated humanely, and their injuries to be tended with as much care as we would those of our own countrymen.”

Discontented murmurings. Thomas heard someone say, “You won’t catch me,” and murmurs of assent from the men around him.

Major Thwait must have heard it too, or something like it, because he added, “You do not have to like it, but it is our duty under international law—and, in the case of the medical officers, under the Hippocratic Oath. We are civilized men, from a civilized country, and we will behave as such.” He moved on. “After the infantry has consolidated the enemy’s forward line, they will continue their advance to take the enemy’s support and reserve trenches. These areas will not be as heavily affected by the bombardment, and so our men will begin to encounter serious resistance. Accordingly, we can expect significant casualties beginning in the afternoon, with numbers increasing as night falls and it becomes safer to move them.”

Translation—nobody was going to be sleeping, or even sitting down, Thursday night. 

“Heavy fighting, and significant casualties, may continue for several days. As it slows down, we can expect to see an increase in relatively light cases, as men who continued to fight in spite of their wounds become free to seek treatment. In addition, we will be setting up Aid Posts and Advanced Dressing Stations in the newly-consolidated areas.”

Not sleeping Thursday night _or_ any of the next few nights, then. No wonder the Major wanted them to get their rest before it all started. 

“It will be a difficult few days,” the Major said, “but I have confidence that each and every one of you will rise to the occasion. Now, I ask the officers to join me in the mess for further instructions, while Master-Sergeant Tully will address the men.”

The Wardmaster stepped forward. “Hut!”

They all stood to attention and saluted the departing officers. The Wardmaster watched them go, then dropped out of attention and said, “At ease.” He sighed. “You heard the Major. This is gonna be a fucking shit-show, and no mistake.”

Behind them, there was a crash of guns, like distant thunder. At least half the company, involuntarily, turned to look toward it—even though there was, at this distance, nothing to see. 

“That’s not gonna stop for six fucking days, so you might as well get used to it,” the Wardmaster told them. “Like he said, we’re gonna start to see some casualties coming in almost right away. The artillery blokes are working like one-legged men at the world’s biggest arse-kicking contest; they’re gonna make mistakes. And Fritz ain’t gonna be happy we’re making all this noise. But this is just the fucking overture. _Don’t stretch yourselves too fucking thin._ You new lads, especially—there’s gonna be times you get sent off to get your head down or have something to eat, when there’s still shit to be done. We don’t want to hear ‘I’m not tired, Sarge,’ ‘I can hack it, Sarge.’ It ain’t about that. We’re putting you to one side so we can use you later, when we need you more. Understood?”

“Yes, Sergeant,” they all said.

“Starting tonight, we’re going to have two groups on night duty—first line and reserve line. Reserve line bunks in the mess until you’re called. If we don’t need you one night, we’ll sure as hell need you later, so if you’re lucky enough to get the chance to sleep, fucking sleep. By the time this is all over, we’re all going to be so tired we’re seeing pink fucking elephants—you don’t need to give yourself a head fucking start.”

He went on to explain more details of the preparations. They’d begin clearing the wards of existing patients with today’s rearward convoy, and continue tomorrow, running dawn convoys as well as dusk ones, if necessary. New patients would be kept only until the next convoy, no matter how light, or how serious, the case—or, as the Wardmaster put it, “No bugger is stopping the night unless he’s expected to rejoin his unit—or his Maker—by morning.” 

In addition to emptying out the wards they already had, they’d be setting up additional temporary ones under marquee tents—two proper wards, with fifty beds in each, and two empty tents of the same size where walking wounded could wait out of the weather for their turn to be evacuated further back. And for evacuating them, the Transport Corps was rounding up every decently-sized civilian vehicle they could find, from farm carts to charabancs. These, of course, would not have medical supplies stored on board, as the proper ambulances did, to the orderlies assigned to ride on them would have to carry everything they needed with them. 

The Wardmaster concluded by saying, “Assignments for Zero Day will be posted next week, and I don’t want to hear any fucking complaints. Unless this goes _extremely_ well, every bugger here is going to have a turn going up Front to see the big show, before it’s finished.”

Over the next few days, the only subject on anyone’s lips was the Push: what it would be like, whether it would succeed, and, most importantly, where each of them would be assigned on the day it all started, and which assignments were particularly lucky or unlucky. 

Thomas was a little surprised by how many of the men believed the Push _would_ succeed, and hoped to be placed somewhere close to the action on Zero Day. As far as he could figure out, from what little they’d been told, the General Staff did not have anything new in the way of strategy; they’d be doing the same thing that had failed at Ypres and Loos—a bombardment followed by an infantry advance—just bigger. 

Thomas’s section became even more optimistic when, on night duty, they were sent out to the collecting post to bring back wounded, there being too many to fit in the available ambulances. 

Ahead of them, in the direction of the Front, the sky was lit up red, like a sunset in the wrong direction. You couldn’t see or hear individual explosions, just a continuous glow and roar; that was how many there were. The collecting post was only a little behind the artillery, and as they neared it, they could feel the vibration of the guns through their feet. 

“Not many Huns living through _that_ ,” Widener said, to general agreement. 

Admittedly, it was hard to see how they could. And the station was seeing very few casualties from enemy shells—tonight’s larger-than-usual collection of wounded was, reportedly, the fault of a single malfunctioning piece of their own artillery, which had landed two shells in the British lines before exploding and taking out most of its crew. Word from the Front was that the enemy was barely retaliating at all—perhaps because they were unable to.

Thomas considered that, if he were a German general, he’d not risk sending his artillery crews out in this nightmare to lob a few shells at the opposing trenches—they couldn’t hope to match the British bombardment, not unless they had, by some astonishing coincidence, also been stockpiling vast amounts of ammunition in this very spot for months. The smart thing to do would be to save their ammunition, and keep their gunners alive, until the bombardment _stopped_ , and the British infantry came out into the open, where they could be picked off at leisure.

Then again, German generals were likely just as short of common sense as British ones, so who knew? Perhaps they were shelling the hell out of empty trenches, the Boche already dead or racing back to Germany with their tails between their legs. 

Either way, when the Wardmaster called him in the next afternoon to ask about his section’s readiness, Thomas was able to report that they were keen and fit. “The new men, in particular, are eager to see some action.” He ran down the list of ones who had been cause for concern: Hutchins and Drover, the windiest of the lot, had settled down on this latest outing. Wallace and Eakins, the two little Cockney lads, had been gaining in strength over the last two months, and Ericson and Babcock, the asthmatic and the bad back, hadn’t had any trouble last night. “I’d still keep an eye on those four when it’s a long day of strenuous work, but they should be all right for a while.”

“Good,” the Wardmaster said. “I’m thinking of putting your lot down at the Aid Post.”

On Zero Day, he had to mean. What else could he be talking about? 

“Thursday morning,” the Wardmaster added. “We won’t know what the fuck to expect, so I need someone who can use his head.”

“I see,” Thomas said. It did make sense—he’d been at the Aid Post before, for one thing. And he was good in No Man’s Land. “Well, they’ll all be excited to see the start of the Push.”

“It’s not a soft fucking job,” the Wardmaster said, “but it should be a good fit for your lads.” He explained that they’d be doing first aid and organizing the wounded for transport rearward by the bearer sections, under the direction of the regiment’s medical officer, as well as bringing in wounded from no-man’s land. “You’ll be able to rotate carrying wounded with the lighter jobs—that should help the weak buggers keep up.” 

“Right,” Thomas said, thinking about how he’d set up the rotations so it wouldn’t be obvious that some men were spending more time on the lighter work than others. 

“You’ll have the regiment’s designated stretcher-bearers to help with that,” he said, “but the rest of ‘em are under fucking orders not to stop and aid their own wounded. Either they make it back themselves, or they wait for us to show up.”

That was going to be a tough order for the men from the regiment to follow, Thomas knew from his time at the Front last year. There were always plenty of volunteers to go out after wounded comrades. They’d have to know they could rely on the stretcher-bearers to be not far behind them. 

“You’re good at field triage,” the Wardmaster went on, “but in a thing like this, there’s one more thing you’ve got to know— _bring the easy ones in first_. A casualty that’s near the parapet, or that has good cover most of the way between you and him, you get those before you go for the ones you’ve got to cross a lot of open ground to get to. You understand why?”

Thomas nodded. “It won’t do anybody any good if we get taken out of commission ourselves, trying to get to them.”

“Fucking spot-on. You put it to your lads that way. Your job is to bring in as many of the poor buggers as you can manage—and even if it all goes down the way the brass expect, there’s going to be plenty to choose from. Now, if it’s the walk-over they think it’s gonna be, with most of the Hun already dead and the rest throwing up their hands and saying _Mercy, Kamerad_ the moment they see our British pluck, you do standard field triage—look for the ones that won’t last if they aren’t tended to, but have a chance if they are. Your new blokes won’t know which they are, so it’ll be up to you to pick them out for them. Make sure you explain the fucking logic beforehand, and tell them you don’t want any fucking arguments on the day.”

“All right,” Thomas said, thinking about which ones _would_ argue.

“It’s gonna be hard,” the Wardmaster added. “There’ll be blokes lying there who ought to be dead but are somehow still conscious enough to call out for help, and you’ll have to pass them by. That’s hell on a man’s nerves. Especially your sensitive types. You can stop and pump ‘em full of morphine, if that helps your lads keep going.”

It took Thomas a moment to realize he meant pump the dying full of morphine, not his own men. “All right.” Then, just to make sure he understood what the Wardmaster meant, he asked, “How much morphine?”

“As much as it fucking takes.”

“Right,” Thomas said. That was what he thought. “We’ll take plenty, yeah?”

“Yeah. Now, if the fucking bombardment fails, and the Boche are sitting there waiting to give our lads a warm fucking welcome, you’re not gonna want to fuck around in No-Man’s Land any more than you have to. Grab whoever the fuck you can grab, and scarper back to the trench. If it _really_ goes to shit, you grab as many as you can grab while there’s still infantry standing between you and Fritz, and then you make yourselves real busy treating and evacuating the ones you have, so no one gets a bright idea about sending you back out to look for more.”

Thomas nodded, a little dubiously. 

“There’s no fucking shame in keeping your skin in one piece,” the Wardmaster added. “An operation like this goes south, the brass get real fucking tempted to keep throwing bodies at it, trying to get something to show for it all. You don’t need to get mixed up in that. You’re ordered to go out, you go out, but use your fucking head. If trying to move the wounded is just going to get them _and_ you killed, get them into a fucking shell hole, or under some bit of cover, treat them as best you can, and tell ‘em we’ll be back for them at nightfall.” 

The little Cockney lads would be good at that, being small and quick, Thomas thought. He carefully didn’t think about the fact that there were bound to be some wounded who wouldn’t last until nightfall. “I understand.”

“There’s a decent chance we’ll have more help by then,” the Wardmaster added. “If it goes according to fucking plan, and they consolidate the enemy’s first and second lines by afternoon, they’ll be able to spare some men to go after their own wounded. If it all goes to shit, they can pick up some of their mates while they’re in fucking retreat. We could also get to borrow some men from the reserve units, if GHQ ends up not needing them all for the attack.”

The reserve units were the ones kept back to join the battle later, in the first-line units needed reinforcing. “I suppose,” Thomas said, “the more casualties there are, the more likely the reserves’ll be otherwise occupied.” 

“Yeah,” said the Wardmaster. “We’ll see how it goes. Mid-day or so, once we have some fucking idea what we’re dealing with, I’ll send another section or two up. If they relieve you, it’ll likely be because I want you out there again at night, so no fucking arguments about that, either.”

“Yes, Sergeant,” Thomas said. 

“All right.” The Wardmaster stood up from his desk. “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for a fucking drink.”

So they had a fucking drink. Thomas, having gotten a great deal of practice dodging refills during his time as the Wardmaster’s clerk, managed to keep it to one, and rejoined his section in the mess. They were on wards, but since the wards were being cleared out with every convoy, all they had to do in the afternoon was get the ward ready for the next crop of patients—make the beds, re-stock supplies, and a few other things like that—and then wait for them to show up. 

Manning and Collins were there too, with their sections, and Thomas soon figured out that they had just been meeting with their sergeants, too. 

“Did you find out where we’re going to be?” Rawlins asked, filling a cup of tea and pushing it towards Thomas.

“We’re at the collecting post,” Manning added, indicating himself and Collins.

“Humping stretchers back and forth between there and the Aid Post all day,” Collins added, with a certain amount of pride.

“Bet they have us doing that, too,” Widener said. “Right?”

Thomas hesitated. “We’re at the Aid Post.” 

There was a moment’s resounding silence, until Manning said, “Fuck. Jammy bastard. You’re going to see the whole show.”

“I expect we’ll be too busy to see much,” Thomas said. 

“You’ll see some,” Collins said. “That’s something to tell your grandkids—you were there the moment we started to win the war.”

Unless something changed drastically, Thomas wasn’t going to have any grandkids, and he suspected that even if this _did_ turn out to be the day they broke almost two years of stalemate and put the Germans on the run, it was mostly going to look like blood and chaos. But he didn’t argue. “You’ll see plenty, too, when you come up to collect wounded. And the Wardmaster said he’d likely send other sections up to the Front later.” 

He hadn’t quite said that those sections would be Collins and Manning’s—but he had said, once he was well into his second or third drink, that what he’d been telling Thomas about keeping out of the other two corporals’ way went “straight out the fucking window, when the serious shit hits. You’ve done a fuck-load more work under fire than they have put together; if you need to take charge, take fucking charge.”

While Collins and Manning’s sections murmured amongst themselves about that, Drover asked, “What will they have us doing at the Aid Post, exactly?”

So Thomas relayed what the Wardmaster had told him, with more detail. “Lot of first aid—putting on dressings, giving out morphine to the serious cases, rum and cigarettes to the rest. Keeping them organized to be moved back, in order of priority. Officially, the MO does the triage once they’re inside our lines, but if there’s more than he can keep up with, we make the first cut—which ones he needs to see first, which ones can wait, and so on.” The third category was ones they were going to leave to die, and Thomas was going to have to come out and say that sooner or later, but he’d work up to it, he decided. 

“Which MO do we have?” asked Rawlins. 

“Bloke from the regiment,” Thomas answered. He hadn’t asked which one, but he didn’t know them, anyway, and doubted anyone else did, either. “We’ll have his regular team, too—four orderlies and a corporal. And about twenty stretcher-bearers from the regiment, to help with bringing the wounded in from no-man’s land.”

There was another silence, with even Manning and Collins’s blokes turning to look at him.

“The regiment does most of that, don’t they?” Hutchins asked. “Bringing in their own?”

“Usually,” Thomas said. “From patrols and things like that. But when it’s a Push, they have to keep advancing. Once they’re done with their job, they’ll be able to come back and help if necessary, but for a while, it’ll just be the ones assigned to stretcher duty, and us.” 

“Bugger me,” said one of the Cockney lads. Thomas wasn’t looking their direction, so he wasn’t sure which.

“Barrow’s been in no-man’s land hundreds of times,” Rawlins said. “He’ll tell us how it’s done.”

“Not quite hundreds,” Thomas said. He’d only been at the Front a few weeks, and he hadn’t gone out every night. He talked a bit about how to move in no-man’s land—avoiding straight lines, ducking from one shell hole or bit of cover to the next, and avoiding barbed wire. “And I’m used to doing it in the fucking dark,” he added. “We’ll be able to see where we’re going.”

“They’ll be able to see us, too,” Drover pointed out. 

“Yeah,” Thomas admitted, “but keep in mind, we’ll be _behind_ the advance—those poor bastards will be standing between us and the enemy. I’m not saying nothing’s going to get through, but nobody’s going to be _aiming_ at us. With night work, you have snipers and machine-gunners looking for any hint of movement. Zero Day, they’re going to be too busy dealing with what’s right on top of them to worry about us at the back of the pack.” 

“Anyway,” Manning pointed out, “there aren’t going to be many of them left alive by the time the _infantry_ goes over the top, let alone you lot.” 

Everyone looked incredibly relieved at that; unfortunately, Thomas couldn’t let it stand. “That’s the plan,” he said. “But who’s heard the one about no plan surviving contact with the enemy?”

“I haven’t,” said Plank.

Rawlins thumped him. “You just did.”

Thomas explained, “It could be they get their reserves into position faster than we think they can, or it could be they’re dug in deep enough to last out the bombardment.” The Wardmaster had talked about both of those possibilities. A mate of his, apparently, had been in on the capture of a German trench—one of the few taken at Loos—and had said that, in some places at least, their dugouts were much deeper than the British ones, and some of them—and many of their gun emplacements—were reinforced with concrete. The Wardmaster had also heard, from yet another mate, this one in the artillery, that most of the barrage was made up of lightweight stuff, which made a lot of noise but wouldn’t penetrate even the average British dugout, let alone the sturdy ones the Germans were rumored to have. “We won’t know what to expect until we see it, so we need to be ready for anything.” 

“Hear, hear,” said Rawlins.

That night, they were on reserve for night duty, and so they bedded down in the mess. They’d learned, through experience, that while there was just enough space for everyone to lie down somewhere, with all the tables and benches _in situ_ , whenever anybody got up to go to the latrine, everybody else got woken up by all the banging and swearing as they bumped into furniture and trod on people. So step one was to pile all the furniture up at one side of the room. After that, everyone spread out their bedrolls, and then sat up talking for a while. 

Thomas, being a corporal, had a prime spot next to a bit of wall he could lean against until he was ready to lie down. He was smoking a meditative cigarette when Rawlins squeezed in beside him. “Reminds me of the old days in the barn,” he commented. 

Thomas knew what he meant—they were less chatty in the barn, now that they were three separate sections with different schedules. But he said, “I could dump a bucket of water over your head, if you want the full nostalgic experience.” 

“Tempting, but I’ll pass,” Rawlins said. He lit a cigarette of his own. “So—how bad does he think it’s going to be?”

The Wardmaster, he meant. “Bad,” Thomas said. “Even if the bombardment kills most of them, one man on a machine gun can take out a platoon or two before anyone gets close enough to throw a Mills bomb into the emplacement.”

“The one man has to be a machine-gunner, though, doesn’t he?” Rawlins asked.

“The Wardmaster says his mate says, if their machine guns are anything like ours, it doesn’t take an expert until it jams up or overheats. It will eventually—they’re finicky—but until then, any bugger off the street can make it go.” 

“Huh,” said Rawlins, pushing closer against Thomas’s side.

“So tomorrow, we’ve got to have a talk with the new blokes about field triage,” he added. “And about how, if a man’s too far gone to help, but conscious enough to draw attention to himself, the best thing you can do is give him enough morphine to shut him up.” 

Rawlins said, “You mean….”

“If necessary, yeah.” 

“He thinks it’s going to be _that_ bad?”

“Could be. The other thing we need to talk about is how, if they don’t take the German front line as fast as the brass thinks, we focus on getting the ones close to home.” The Wardmaster had elaborated on that a bit more, once he’d started drinking, too. _If the fucking Boche are still in ‘active resistance,’ stay outside their wire unless the fucking ruperts give you no choice at all._ “We start with the cases inside our wire, then the ones the middle. The ones inside the enemy’s wire, and any in a tricky spot, we leave until things cool down.”

Rawlins took a drag from his cigarette. “Not sure I like that.” 

“If it’s that bad, we’ll have enough to do without looking for extra trouble,” Thomas said. “And we have to still be standing when it cools down, if we’re going to be able to get them then. We end up needing help ourselves, we can’t help anyone.”

“Good point.” He shook his head. “It’s hard to imagine. I mean, Rouse talked a little bit about what it was like up at Loos, but….”

“Yeah.” He hadn’t talked about it much, and that alone had said a lot. “I don’t expect it’ll be anything we want our grandchildren knowing about.”

“No,” Rawlins agreed. “We’ll tell ‘em about the barn, and Mittens.”

“Granny’s,” suggested Thomas. “And how sick we all are of plum-and-apple jam.”

“And I’ll tell ‘em about my best mate from the war.”

“Yeah?” Thomas asked. “Who’s that?”

Rawlins gave him a dirty look. 

“All right,” Thomas said. “I guess I’ll tell my imaginary grandchildren about you.” He was reminded of talking to Peter about the imaginary pub, and whether or not they’d let ones like Syl in. 

“You’re not having any real ones?”

“Servants don’t usually marry,” he said. That wasn’t the real reason, of course. “Not in great houses, I mean. It’s like entering a celibate order.”

“You think you’ll go back to that?” Rawlins asked.

“Haven’t really thought about it.” If the Big Push actually worked—if Thursday morning was the beginning of the Allied victory—it might not be long before he _had_ to start thinking about it. “I don’t know what else I’d do.”

“Seems like you could do just about anything,” Rawlins said, yawning. “You sure took to this like a duck to water.”

There was being able to do it, and then there was being given the chance to try. Thomas thought about his last real talk with Rouse, about the things Rawlins would never be able to understand. He didn’t really want to try to explain. “What about you? Going back to the paper factory?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Rawlins said. “I suppose I’ll have to. Won’t be easy, though. This hasn’t exactly been fun, but it feels like we’re doing something important, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Thomas said, lighting another cigarette. Mattered more than endlessly polishing the same silver, or carrying food and drink to people who had four perfectly sound limbs of their own. “Do you suppose there’s much in the way of hospital work, for men? Or is it all nurses?”

“Don’t know,” Rawlins said. “You could stay in the RAMC. Bet the Wardmaster would put in a word for you.”

Thomas hadn’t thought of that. He turned the idea over in his mind. “Wouldn’t be like this, though, in peacetime. Bet it’s a lot more like when we were at the CCS. Drill and inspections.”

“You’re good at those,” Rawlins pointed out. 

“I am, but if it’s like that, I might as well be a footman again. Same sort of thing, really.” 

“Hm?” Rawlins gave him a quizzical look.

“Just…polishing things and being invisible,” Thomas said. “Only indoors.” And you got to be picked up by your betters in places like the Criterion, instead of Hyde Park. “There’ll be lots of household looking for men servants, once it’s all over.” He could name several. Maybe he could take Syl’s place at Lady M’s. Or Peter’s, as Sir H.’s valet. He shuddered a little, involuntarily.

“You all right?” Rawlins asked. Tucked up against Thomas’s side like he was, he had to have felt it. 

“Someone just walked over me grave,” Thomas said. “Better talk about something else, yeah? Be a shame if we queered the whole thing, talking too much about after the war.”

“I suppose it is tempting fate,” Rawlins agreed. “All right, so what do you suppose Manning will come up with to convince himself he’s got a more important assignment than Collins, even though they’re doing the exact same fucking thing?”

So they talked a bit about that, and then slid into talking about the new men and how they’d bear up, and how superior their section was to Manning’s—he thought the same thing, in reverse, but the difference was that they were right—and so on, until it was time to shout at everyone to stop chattering and go to the fuck to sleep. 

No time at all seemed to pass before Wednesday afternoon was upon them. Their section had been dismissed to get some sleep—they’d be reporting back at 2 AM, to collect their supplies and then begin making their way through the jam-packed trenches to the Aid Post—but it was pissing down rain, and instead of making the trek to the barn, or even to the new blokes’ tent, they lingered in the orderlies’ room, smoking, drinking tea and speculating about what the dismal weather meant for the attack plans. The rumors were about sixty-forty in favor of it being postponed, and the bombardment had slowed to a trickle—the big guns didn’t like the wet—but no orders had come in.

“You could go and ask the Wardmaster,” Plank suggested at one point.

“We were dismissed three hours ago,” Thomas pointed out. “Not sure I want to draw attention to the fact that we haven’t fucking left.” 

“Maybe we’d better go,” Rawlins said. “You lot in the tent’ll hear, when there’s any news. One of you can come tell us.” 

Everyone looked at Thomas. Right—he was the Dad; it was his job to tell them it was past their bedtime. “I’m not stopping anyone from leaving,” he pointed out, and lit a cigarette. “I’m gonna smoke this first, though.”

He was just about finished with it when Sergeant Purbright turned up. “Orders just came in,” he said. “Whole show’s pushed back forty-eight hours.”

“Thank Christ,” said Rawlins. 

“Amen,” said one of the Cockneys. 

“Any word on what we’re supposed to do?” Thomas asked. “We were off duty until 2 AM.”

“Yes,” said Purbright. “The Wardmaster says that since you’re all so fucking keen that you’re still here when you’re supposed to be asleep, you can take the next ambulance that comes in.” He bestowed a smirk on them before leaving.

“Oh, fuck,” said Thomas. Unloading an ambulance in the pouring rain was never fun—and it was likely to be hours before it came in, but if they were first up for it, they couldn’t risk going anywhere or doing anything else, in case it was early.

Sitting here wasting time had been perfectly fine when they could stop any time they wanted, but it was not quite as enjoyable now that they had no choice. 

“Honestly, it beats going up to the Front in this slop,” Rawlins pointed out. 

That was true, but if they had actually left when they were supposed to, chances were fairly good they could have celebrated the news of the postponement by going out for a drink. Now, by the time they were set free, the estaminets would be crammed to capacity, every bugger else having had the same idea. 

Still, nobody was too down in the dumps about it, especially once it turned out that Ericson had gotten a parcel yesterday, which contained a large cake. The new blokes had been planning a midnight feast before reporting in that night, but having been just reminded how quickly things could change, in war, Ericson was readily persuaded that now was as good a time as any to eat it. 

The next morning, the section was on the wards like any other day, tending patients who had come in during the night. Thomas happened to be in Officers’ Medical, and one lightly-wounded Captain, throughout breakfast, kept taking out his watch and checking it. The reason finally became plain when, as Thomas and the others were clearing away the dishes, he announced, “Seven-thirty.” 

Zero Hour for the attack. If not for the postponement, the officers on the Front would be blowing their whistles, and the men would be going over the top. For a long moment, no one said anything. Thomas and the rest paused in their work, half listening—or at least Thomas was—for some change in the sound of the guns. 

Finally, one of the other officers said, “Christ, why’d you have to _say_ that?”

They all shook it off and moved on, but somehow, the pronouncement left Thomas with a queer, unsettled feeling, like he’d fallen through to the other side of the looking-glass, and out in the real world, the great offensive had begun, unheard and unseen, but just barely felt, by those of them trapped—or sheltered—in the mirror.

The sense of eerie unreality persisted most of the way through to the new Zero Day. Not all the time; just a flash of it, now and then. Thursday evening, when he and Rawlins slipped out for dinner at Granny’s, Thomas dined on mirror trout, and later that night, when they were called out of their bedrolls in the mess to receive three loaded ambulances, Thomas thought, for a dizzying split second between asleep and awake, that the casualties must have fallen through the mirror from the battle outside. (Really, a shell had fallen short into a crowded assembly trench.)

Friday, thankfully, no one drew attention to 7:30 AM, and Thomas thought little about the mirror world, except when the Wardmaster called him in for a glass of mirror-Armagnac and a few words of advice, and then again when he returned to the barn to sleep in the afternoon—they weren’t making the same mistake twice—and he marveled that the mirror-cat made the same comforting weight on his ribs as the real one. 

The mirror was very much on Thomas’s mind as they collected their supplies at the station, and again as they passed the collecting post and entered the communication trench, but he didn’t feel it, not in that eerily immediate way. The trenches were jam-packed, men trying to catch a little sleep in any spot they could, others sitting up and smoking, writing letters, or trying to sing, a hymn here, a music-hall tune there, even a group of dark-skinned men in turbans, singing in their native language. 

It was slow going in the crowded trenches, and they took a wrong turn once, into an assembly trench that hadn’t been there the last time Thomas had been this far forward. It was about four-thirty, when they got to the Aid Post. The night was quiet—no shortfalls in this sector, tonight—and there was only one orderly awake inside the Aid Post. Thomas was, somehow, completely unsurprised to see that it was Rouse. 

He was a little bit surprised to see that he had his stripes back, though. 

“Hey,” Rouse said. “Wondered if it’d be you.” He explained that the medical officer—a Captain Rankin—would brief them at 6:30, and that until then, they could rest in the storage dugout. “But keep it down,” he said. “It’s possible somebody managed to get to sleep.”

Once the others had crammed themselves into the storage dugout, Thomas lit a cigarette, and, without discussion, the three of them—Thomas, Rouse, and Rawlins—sat on the steps leading into the dugout, as they had sat on the barracks steps so many times the past winter. 

It was not quite as comfortable, in the sweltering heat of the first of July, as it had been in winter, but Thomas found he didn’t mind. He put his head on Rawlins’s shoulder, like he had that one time when he’d been half-sedated and sick with missing Peter. His left elbow, trapped between him and Rawlins, pressed his cigarette case against his ribcage. He wouldn’t look at it—he couldn’t afford to be that distracted—but he wanted it with him, for this.

Some three hours later, the whistles blew, and the mirror shattered. Thomas and the others were in the communication trench—Captain Rankin had posted them to the firing trench, to begin retrieving wounded “as soon as the advance has moved beyond them,” but there wasn’t room for them to squeeze in, so they’d gotten as close as they could. At the moment the whistle blew, men began swarming up the ladders.

It was only seconds—perhaps five, perhaps two—before the first one fell back in. Someone shouted for a stretcher bearer, and Thomas took the nearest man—it was one of the Cockneys—and began fighting his way forward. By the time they got to the first casualty, four or five more had fallen, and an officer was waving his sidearm and shouting, “Get your arses up those ladders, you sons-of-mothers!”

The man who had caught the first one to fall shoved him in Thomas’s direction and gave him a wide-eyed look before turning to get his arse up the ladder.

The casualty was dead; he’d been drilled right through the forehead, like an ox being slaughtered. Thomas and the Cockney lad—it was Eakins—dragged him out of the way. They found a dugout nearby—someone’s sleeping-place, maybe even this man’s—and put him inside. By now, the rest of the section had made their way into the trench, and were attending to the others who had fallen back in—at least a dozen by now. 

Hutchins and Babcock approached, carrying an obviously-dead man between them. “Is this where we’re putting them?” asked Babcock.

“Yeah,” Thomas said, and raised his voice. “Dead in here. Anybody got a live one?”

“Here,” said Plank, raising his hand, like they were in a classroom. 

The man’s chest was blown open, but Plank had gotten his field dressing out, and was lashing it in place in approved fashion. “Right,” Thomas said. Finding a larger dugout, he designated that one for triage C’s—hopeless cases—and helped Plank put the first one in there. “A’s on the fire step,” he reminded everyone. A’s were priority cases—the ones that had a chance, but needed immediate attention. They didn’t have any A’s yet. 

They started getting B’s—cases that could wait for attention—almost immediately, though, as they crawled back to the trench and dropped in. Thomas designated another sizeable dugout for them, and as he started slapping field dressings on them, told them to make their own way back to the Aid Post, when and if they felt able. “It’s bad out there,” he said. “Might be a while before anyone can help you.”

“Barrow!” someone yelled from outside the dugout. “We’ve got more!”

“Put ‘em somewhere!” he yelled back. Then, to the men inside the dugout, he said, “If you have use of both your hands, put your own field dressing on—then check if the bloke to either side needs help with his. Understand?”

Getting a few nods of assent, he ran back outside. A few more dead had dropped out of the sky, and a great many more walking wounded. And one who’d dragged himself back with his arms, by the look of it, trailing his intestines behind him. Drover, who was helping him over the parapet, stumbled backward and vomited. 

_A man who should be dead, but isn’t_ , the Wardmaster had said. Thomas’s hands shook, as he reached inside his haversack for a syringe and a bottle of morphine. But they only shook a little. 

Once it was over, Babcock appeared at his side, and wordlessly handed Thomas a bayonet, dropped by one of the first casualties. 

Thomas felt a glimmer of understanding of how others felt when they heard the Hand Story. Because yes, obviously, they couldn’t leave him hanging there, halfway in the trench—not with the second wave already coming up the communication trench, and it would take a hell of a lot more than “sons of mothers” to get them over the top if they saw _that—_ and nobody was going out there to untangle the rest of him from the barbed wire, so there was really only one thing to do, but….

But Thomas found the place inside his head where he had lived, those first few months that he was here. He’d never quite noticed when he left that place, but now that he needed to be there again, it was as though he never had. 

“Ta,” he said, took the bayonet, and cut the body free, so they could move it out of the way. They had it stowed in the mortuary dugout just as the second wave came up. 

The second wave made it a little further than the first—at least, only two of them fell back into the trench before they’d finished leaving it, and it took a few moments for walking wounded to start making their way back in. While the others dealt with them, Thomas had a look through the trench periscope. Captain Rankin had said they’d probably make their “first foray to retrieve wounded” between the second and third waves, but he’d also said that they should wait until the first wave was inside the German wire, and “any surviving enemy are fully engaged with countering the advance.”

If they waited for that, they’d never have to go, since as far as Thomas could tell, all of the first wave was lying on the ground. Some obviously dead, some crawling back toward the trench—a few, absurdly, crawling the _opposite direction_ , still trying to advance. 

Thomas supposed they’d gone someplace inside their heads, too. 

“Do we have to go out yet?” someone asked. One of the new men. Thomas couldn’t be bothered thinking about their names. 

“Not yet,” he said. “Maybe after the next wave.” 

In fact, it was two more waves before any appreciable number of troops survived as far as the German wire. The wave after that, most of them made it that far. 

Thomas was pretty sure that meant the enemy was fully engaged. He called his section together. 

“It’s time,” he said. “We go out in pairs. First up are me and Wallace, Rawlins and Ericson, Hutchins and Babcock. Widener’ll assign the rest of the pairs. First three pairs go out one right after the other; after that, one pair gets back, the next goes out. Don’t spend any more time out there than you have to. Before you go, take a look through the periscope, pick out somebody you can tell is alive—make sure you and your partner are both looking at the same one—and that’s inside our wire. _Well_ inside. We’re not staying out there long enough to untangle anybody, this time around—if you get to your bloke and realize he’s entangled, pick somebody else. Understand?”

They nodded. 

“Remember what we talked about—we get the easy ones first, because that’s how we bring in the most. Let’s try and do three trips each, then we stop and take stock of what we’ve got. All right?”

More nods. 

That was all Thomas really had to say, but he realized, belatedly, that he should have thought up an inspiring way to end this speech. Peter would have had some idea of the right thing to say. But what? “This is a shit job,” he said, “but somebody’s got to do it.” Probably not that. “If anybody has a good reason it shouldn’t be us, I’m all fucking ears.” _Definitely_ not that. 

Thomas hadn’t been trying to be funny, but they laughed at that, and it made the moment seem less fraught, at least. “Nobody? All right, then I guess we’re it. Let’s go.”

They went. 

Had anyone asked Thomas, at that moment, he’d have said that—place he’d gone inside his head notwithstanding—he had just as much desire to live as the next bloke. He’d have gone on saying that as he and Wallace scrambled back into the trench with their first casualty, and as they picked up their second. He’d even have said it as they scrambled back out of the trench after their third. 

But when it came—a blow to the chest like a kick from a carthorse—it came as the answer to a question he’d asked a year and two months ago. When he’d taken the telegram out of the boy’s hand, the boy who was haloed in sunlight like a saint at the kitchen door of Downton Abbey, he had blinked, and then the door had been closed, and Anna had been standing beside him, with tears in her eyes. 

Now, he was back inside that moment, the eternity of that eye-blink. Falling, weightless, through a void of unfathomable depth.

And when he hit the ground, of a field in the Somme River valley of northern France, his last thought, before darkness swallowed him whole, was _finally_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content endnotes:   
> 1) The Wardmaster and Thomas discuss mercy-killing of the severely wounded; later, Thomas performs one. 2) Thomas is wounded, and 2.5) he expresses suicidal ideation as it occurs. 
> 
> Historical note: 
> 
> The Battle of the Somme was one of the biggest military disasters of the war—a distinction for which it faces stiff competition. Like other “Pushes” before and after, the basic plan was to punch a hole in the German line, pour men and guns through it, and get the war moving. The tool for punching that hole was infantry—men on foot, with rifles and bayonets. So, as Thomas says, basically “the same thing we’ve been doing, but with more dakka.” The major strategic innovation was a longer-than-usual preliminary bombardment—it started six days before the infantry assault was scheduled to begin.
> 
> The reason the Western Front had been stalemated for so long (and would stay that way for so much longer) is that the military technology of the day was much better adapted to defending a trench than attacking one. Defenders could stay in the relative safety of their trenches, while attackers had to go out in the open. (Tanks would change this equation, but the first ones wouldn’t be introduced until about a month into the battle of the Somme—and the early ones didn’t get very far before they got stuck or broke down.) The bombardment was meant to batter the German defenses enough to negate the home-field advantage: collapse their trenches, destroy their artillery and machine-gun emplacements, kill the men—or at least put them in retreat--after which the infantry would be able to stroll across no-man's land and take possession of the German trenches. Some survivors recalled being told it was unlikely they'd encounter a live German. 
> 
> It didn’t work. The bombardment used an unprecedented amount of firepower, but the German trenches were deeper and better-fortified than the Allies bargained for, and the majority of the artillery pieces used were too light to penetrate them. (It’s a matter of some debate whether the British high command had enough information available to them to anticipate this outcome. Certainly, there were some high-level officers who strongly urged attacking a smaller area so the available artillery could be more heavily concentrated.) The heaviest guns, which _were_ able to penetrate German bunkers, couldn’t be aimed with much accuracy, so it was purely a matter of luck whether they took out the machine-gun nest or, say, the latrine. 
> 
> When the infantry regiments swarmed up out of the trenches on the morning of July 1, most of them faced nearly-intact German defenses, and were slaughtered wholesale. Survivors commonly compared the sight to grain being cut down by a scythe. British casualties for that _single day_ totaled 57,470, of whom 19,240 were killed.


	17. Chapter 14: July, 1916

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas wakes up.

Thomas opened his eyes to a rough plank ceiling, patched here and there with bits of sacking. His thoughts were strangely slow, like moving underwater, and for a moment he considered where he might be. Then there was a _crump_ , and fine soil sifted down on him from between the boards. 

The Aid Post. He had a vague idea that it had been a long time since he’d been at the Aid Post, but it didn’t seem particularly important. He looked at the ceiling for a while, until it occurred to him to turn his head.

There was daylight coming in from the main room. Daylight, and men’s voices. Some groaning in pain, some speaking low and urgently—“Get that,” “This one next,” and things of that nature. 

Casualties, then. It was daytime, he was sleeping in the Aid Post, and there were casualties. Those facts added up to something, but it was a long moment before he figured out that what they added up to, was that he ought to get up and help. 

It took another long moment for him to remember how to start doing that. Step one was to sit up, he recalled. 

So he tried to do that, and a tiger ripped its claws through his shoulder. He shouted, and slumped back down onto the thin pillow. “Oh, fuck.” 

Someone came in. “Barrow? What are you—oh, bloody hell.” 

It was Rouse. That made sense. He was supposed to be here. Him and Jessop and Allenby. “Something’s wrong,” Thomas managed to say, panting through the pain. 

“I know,” said Rouse, looming over him. How, when he was so short, and Thomas was on the top bunk, he had no idea. “Lay still. Captain!” he yelled over his shoulder.

Another face loomed over him. Not Captain Allenby, but vaguely familiar. “Again? All right, get that dressing….”

“He’s gonna bleed out if he doesn’t stay quiet,” Rouse said. 

“Get a syringe, then,” the vaguely-familiar Captain said.

“You sure?” Rouse asked. “He’s had a lot.”

“Do you want his autonomic nervous system suppressed, or do you want him to bleed out?”

They said some more things, but Thomas didn’t catch them. The cat with many names licked at his elbow, then sunk in a single claw, and the darkness swallowed Thomas up again.

#

Jessop stood in the doorway to Tully’s office. He was on the telephone, arguing with somebody about stretchers. His tunic was off—slung over the back of his chair—and there was a glass at his elbow. “If you don’t send the fucking things back, we won’t have any to put the next lot on. I don’t give a fuck. You want my lads to carry them up out of the trenches piggy-back? Figure it out.” He banged the receiver down and lifted his glass.

“Tully,” Jessop said, before he could drink. 

Tully waved him in. “What now?”

“Barrow came in on the last convoy. I thought you’d want to know.”

“Barrow? Why did he—” Jessop watched as Tully realized why. “Merciful _Christ_ ,” Tully swore. Or prayed. It was hard to tell. “How bad is it?” he asked, standing up and grabbing his tunic in one motion, then shrugging it on as he walked toward Jessop.

“Shoulder,” Jessop said, falling into step beside him. “Walking case, technically, but they gave him enough morphine to stop a horse—he kept trying to get up and work.”

Typical of the lad, really, and Jessop thought Tully might be glad to hear it, but he just gave him a baleful look. “Where is he?”

“Out in the tent, with the other walkers.” The proper wards were jam-packed with stretcher cases; most of the walking cases weren’t even seen by a medical officer before they were loaded onto the next rearward convoy. 

“Fuck that,” said Tully. 

The lad was sitting where Jessop had left him, propped up against one of the tent poles. Jessop had left him a pack of cigarettes and a water-bottle full of tea, but it didn’t look like he’d touched either. Tully got down on the ground in front of him. “Son? How’re you feeling?”

Barrow raised his head slightly, and mumbled something that might have been “Wardmaster.” 

Tully reached toward the dressing on his shoulder, then sat back on his heels, looking around. Jessop grabbed a bottle of disinfectant from a nearby crate and handed it to him. “Apparently he’s been sloshing the stuff on every time he comes round enough to think of it,” Jessop said. “His uniform’s soaked with it—but God knows how much he actually managed to get into the wound.”

Tully poured some of the disinfectant onto his hands. “Find another dressing.”

By the time Jessop returned with one, Tully had peeled away the old dressing, exposing a ragged, bloody hole, just below the collarbone and halfway between the neck and shoulder. Barrow’s head was drooping, his eyes half-closed. “When?” Tully asked.

“Morning,” Jessop said. “Zero-plus-one, or so.” About twelve hours ago. “His mate—the Rouse lad—was at the Aid Post. Kept an eye on him.” That can’t have been easy, as busy as the Aid Post would have been. 

Tully grunted. “It’s messy as fuck, but can’t have hit anything vital,” he said, pouring antiseptic into the wound. It had to have hurt, but the lad didn’t react. “Way you can tell is, he’s still alive.”

“Aye.” An inch or two either way, the bullet could have hit the aorta, or the jugular. Or nicked a lung. “He’s right that infection is the thing to worry about.” That and blood loss—it was slow enough for now, but a messy wound like that, you never knew when something else would spring a leak. 

Tully re-bandaged the wound, wiped his hands on a rag, and left the tent, beckoning Jessop to follow him. Once they were out of hearing of the other walking cases, Tully said, “Find me a bed.”

Jessop hesitated. It was their lad, he understood that, but they weren’t putting walking cases on the ward. “We’ll be loading a convoy in a couple hours.” 

“He’s not going.” Tully shook his head. “They won’t do anything we can’t do here—probably just put him on a train to Boulogne without a second look. We’ll keep him here until things slow down.”

Jessop didn’t want to argue with him. You didn’t make exceptions, in a situation like this, with casualties coming in faster than you could count them. You followed procedure, because that was how you saved the most lives. 

But this was their lad. “You sure?”

“I sent him down there to get _shot_ , Jess,” Tully said. “I’m not sending him to bleed out halfway to fucking Boulogne, stuffed in a cattle car with sixty other butchered kids. I’m not.”

He probably wouldn’t bleed out. But _somebody_ would. In the convoy that had brought Barrow from the collecting post—a journey of not much more than half an hour—at least two men had gotten on as walking wounded and been carried off as corpses. When you put fifty or sixty light cases into a cattle car, or a charabanc, or a hay wagon, for a rough journey with little or no medical attendance, some of them were bound to develop fatal complications—a pretty way of saying “die before anyone notices.” It wasn’t any less likely to happen to Barrow than to any of the others. Nor any more likely. “All right,” Jessop said. 

“Just find me a bed. I’m the fucking Wardmaster, and I want him on a fucking ward.”

“I’m going.”

“And get word to young Allenby. He’ll want to have a look at him.”

#

Thomas was vaguely aware, at a few points, of the slog back to the collecting post, with Rouse propping him up like a human crutch, and half-dragging him along. And then of sitting alongside the road in a line of wounded men, and of squeezing into some kind of open cart, and being herded toward a tent that glowed from within like a Chinese lantern, and then sitting again. Jessop may have been there at some point, and possibly even the Wardmaster, but that part might have been a dream. 

The next time he really woke up, though, was to find himself on a ward. Someone had tucked him into one of the beds, for some reason, and he tried to sit up, but someone said, “Easy, now,” and pushed him back down with a hand on his good shoulder. Captain Allenby. “If you move around too much, you’ll start it bleeding again, and I’ve just got it stopped.”

That’s right—he was wounded. That was why he was lying down. “How,” he said. He’d wanted to ask how bad it was, but the rest of the words swam away from him.

“Your friends brought you in as far as the collecting post,” Captain Allenby explained, “and Sergeant Tully wanted you put on a ward. It’s not too bad, though. No signs of infection so far. We’ve just got to keep an eye on the bleeding. I’ll be right back.”

He disappeared behind the screens that were set up around the bed.

Screens. That was important, somehow. But Thomas couldn’t remember how, before he went under again.

#

It was about 2 AM—only 24 hours since they’d left—when Rawlins and the rest of the section stumbled back into the 47th. 

Well, most of them. Barrow had come back several hours before, and Drover never would. 

They had only a few hours before they’d have to go back out again, but when they finished stuffing some food down their gullets, and the others began dragging themselves off in search of a flat place to lie down, Rawlins went looking for Corporal Jessop, instead. 

He found him in the courtyard, seeing off a rearward convoy. Rawlins wondered if he might be too late. 

If Barrow might have been sent out on the convoy, that is. Not the other kind of too late. 

But Jessop said, “No, he’s on C block, Officers’ Medical.” 

Rawlins gave him a puzzled look.

“It’s just where we had a place,” Jessop explained. “The Wardmaster wanted ‘im on a ward, and Captain Allenby’s in charge of that one. We knew he wouldn’t mind.”

Of course—Captain Allenby liked Barrow, too. “So he’s all right, then?”

“Well enough,” Jessop said. “Go on, then, but don’t wake him if he’s asleep.”

Even with the convoy having just left, C Block Officers’ Medical was crowded—every bed full, and stretchers placed in between them. An orderly who was doing patient checks replied, when Rawlins said as much, “This? We’re practically empty now, compared to how it was—we had so many of ‘em on the floor you couldn’t hardly step for them.”

“We’ll be bringing them in from No-Man’s Land for days,” Rawlins predicted. “We’d only cleared the area inside our wire when they sent us back.”

“I’m surprised they did,” the orderly noted.

“Well, we were the first ones out in the morning,” Rawlins explained.

“You’re looking for the VIP, then? Down there.” He nodded towards a set of screens set up around a bed at the far end of the row. Rawlins gave him a look of alarm, and he added, “It’s just so no one notices he’s here in officers’ country.”

“Oh, of course,” Rawlins said. 

Barrow was asleep, tucked into the bed. He was paler than usual, and his right arm was above the covers, hooked up to a tube connected to a clear glass bottle hanging overhead. They’d put fluids in him, then—something they only did when a case had lost a _lot_ of blood. 

The bottle was empty now, so Rawlins pulled out the needle. You were supposed to do that right away; if they woke up and started thrashing about, they could do themselves an injury. But he supposed the orderly on duty had plenty to occupy him. 

Might as well check the state of the dressing while he was at it, Rawlins decided, and folded back the blanket. “Fuck me.” 

The center of the dressing was bright red, saturated with fresh blood, and the stain was growing by the second, widening in slow pulses. “Orderly!” he shouted.

“Keep your trousers on,” the man said, sticking his head through the screens. “Oh, fucking hell.”

“Get the Captain,” Rawlins said. The orderly would have a better idea of where to look for him than Rawlins did. “I’ll stay here.” 

Rawlins had left his haversack in the mess, but he still had his own field dressing tucked into his pocket. He took it out now and used it to put pressure on the wound. 

Barrow chose that moment to wake up. “R’lins? Wha’r you doin’ ‘ere?”

“Stopping you from bleeding out,” Rawlins said. “Seems to be a habit.” It had been Hutchins and Wallace who carried Barrow in from No-Man’s Land, but Rawlins had done the first dressing on his wound. 

Barrow rolled his head to the left and squinted at the wound. “Huh.” His eyes closed for a second. “No’ my fault this time.”

Rouse had said something about having trouble keeping Thomas from aggravating his wound by trying to get up. “No,” Rawlins said. “Not your fault.”

Captain Allenby came in then, unshaven and looking as exhausted as Rawlins felt. “Good God,” he said. “Again?” He shouted for instruments, and directed Rawlins to loosen the dressing. “Don’t quite remove it until I’m ready to go in. Once I do, you’ll have to keep mopping the blood away so I can see what I’m doing.”

Rawins nodded.

“Ready,” Allenby said. 

Blood spurted when Rawlins removed the dressing—but not nearly as forcefully as Rawlins had seen wounds in that area do before. In the circumstances, it was worrying. 

Allenby worked quickly, probing with a slender pair of forceps. “There we are,” he said, as the flow of blood abruptly stopped. “Yet another branch of the axillary artery.” 

“Is that bad?” Rawlins asked.

“It would be worse if it were the axillary artery itself,” Allenby said. “Or the subclavian; that would be a real nightmare. Hand me that, uh….” He nodded toward the instrument tray.

Rawlins likely wouldn’t have known the name even if Allenby could remember it at the moment—he wasn’t trained to assist in surgery. “The string stuff?”

“Yes, that. Oh—pick it up with a bit of clean gauze. There you go.” Allenby took it with the forceps and poked them back inside the wound, saying, “The trouble is, the more of these little blood vessels I tie off, the harder the other ones have to work. Since everything in there has been knocked about a bit, there are all sorts of weak spots just waiting to burst.” He withdrew the forceps. “You can dress that,” he said, moving around to Barrow’s other side to check his pulse. “If it gets much worse, I might have to—oh, damn!”

“What’s wrong?”

“He’s a bit shocky,” Allenby said. “Moore! Get me another bottle of saline, quick as you can.”

The other orderly brought in a bottle, and Allenby began connecting it to the tube Rawlins had so recently removed. Rawlins, for lack of anything better to do, continued dressing the wound. “Is he going to be all right, do you think?”

Allenby didn’t answer for a moment, busy putting the needle back into Barrow’s vein. “I’ve been avoiding tying off the axillary artery, since if I did, he might not have sufficient blood supply to keep the arm alive. I may come to regret that decision.”

Oh. 

Sitting back, Allenby looked at Rawlins appraisingly. “Are you, by any chance, in the donor group?”

Rawlins shook his head. Barrow was, ironically enough. “Should I go find Captain Linwood?”

“He isn’t doing transfusions tonight. Men too urgently needed on their regular duties.” He hesitated. “I’ve been reading up on the technique.”

Securing the dressing, Rawlins got up. “I’ll find somebody. There are a couple of donors in our section.” Plank, and he thought one or two of the new blokes. 

Captain Allenby nodded. “Keep it quiet—I don’t mind taking responsibility if there’s any trouble later, but we don’t want to get caught before we’ve finished doing it.”

“Understood.”

Rawlins raced back to the mess, where most of the section had bedded down—the new men’s tent having been converted to a ward hours ago. They hadn’t quite settled down yet, though, and as soon as he entered, everyone started asking how Barrow was.

“Bad,” Rawlins said, looking around. “Where’s Plank?”

“Went back to the barn to feed Tiger,” Widener said. “Why?”

“Who else is a blood donor?”

There was a moment of quiet. “Drover was,” Hutchins finally said.

But Wallace was already putting out his cigarette and reaching for his tunic. “And me.”

Rawlins remembered now—Captain Linwood had told him he was in the donor group, but wasn’t to volunteer because of how small he was. “Go,” Rawlins said. “Block C, Officers’ Medical. Tell Captain Allenby I’m looking for someone else, but maybe he can get started with you.”

Wallace nodded. “Reckon I can spare a half-pint, at least,” he said, and darted off.

Someone asked if they ought to go and find Captain Linwood, so Rawlins explained what Captain Allenby had said. “I’ll look for Jessop—he’ll have some ideas.”

“I think he’s out in the tents,” Widener said, grabbing his boots, “but I’ll check the NCOs’ room, while you try there.”

Rawlins shook his head. “You should go to the barn and look for Plank.” The new men, who didn’t live there, might miss it in the dark. “He might decide to sleep there instead of coming back. Somebody else can check the NCOs’ room.” 

“I’ll do it,” Hutchins volunteered. 

“Right. Everybody else, keep an eye out for Plank; if he does come back, send him to C, Officers’ Medical.” 

With that, Rawlins jogged out to the tents. He found Jessop in the walking-wounded one, which was rapidly filling up again, with cases making their way in on foot from the collecting post. Jessop went pale when Rawlins told him the news. 

“They’re not supposed to do transfusions tonight, but Allenby’ll do one on the sly if we can find a donor.” He ran down the list of problems with the donors from their section. “Do you know anyone else we can ask?”

“Aye,” Jessop said, handing Rawlins the bottle of tetanus antitoxin that he was administering. “But I’d best do the asking. You take over here.” 

#

“So it turns out you were right to keep him here,” Captain Allenby said, as he fiddled about with a needle in Tully’s arm. “Not that you were wrong to do it before, but now, on purely medical grounds…well.”

“Aye,” Tully said, carefully not watching what Allenby was doing. It wasn’t that he minded the sight of blood—his own or some bugger else’s—but there was something creepy about the idea of putting one man’s blood into another. Like something out of _Frankenstein_. 

On the other hand, this was their lad they were talking about. His and Jessop’s. He was the closest thing either of them was ever going to have to a son. Apart, at least, from the occasional idle speculation about what he’d be like in bed, but then, Tully had never claimed not to be a dirty old man.

“That’s why I did,” he went on. “In case something like this happened.” He probably should have thrown a _fuck_ in there somewhere, in case the lad was awake enough to hear him—everyone knew that when the Wardmaster stopped swearing, it was time to really worry.

Allenby started wittering on about the axillary artery and saving the arm and whether another doctor might have made a different decision and avoided this crisis. When he paused for breath, Tully said, “Anywhere else would never have fucking noticed he was bleeding out in the first place. They’re all as busy as we are on this fucking night from hell. At least we know he fucking _matters_.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Allenby said. “Make sure you keep your arm above his. I’ll be back to check on you in a bit.”

When he moved away, Tully saw one of the runty blokes from Barrow’s section, sitting slumped on the floor and looking pale. That’s right; Jess had mentioned one of them was a donor, but Linwood hadn’t wanted to use him on account of how runty he was.

“You all right?” Tully asked him.

The lad nodded. “Thought I heard you got a cuppa and a biscuit after this, though.” 

“Think you’ll have to get yourself to the mess for that, tonight,” Tully noted. 

The runt nodded. “Captain said I was to sit ‘ere for a bit.” 

Tully felt in his pocket for his flask, but he hadn’t picked it up before leaving his office. Damn. He’d been thinking of offering the runt a nip, but now he knew he didn’t have it, he wanted one himself, too. He lit a cigarette instead, and said, “Best not try to carry stretchers tomorrow. I’ll tell Barrow—fuck.” He wasn’t going to be telling Barrow anything, now, was he? “Who took charge of your section?”

“Rawlins.”

Huh. “I’ll tell Rawlins to put you on something else.” Receiving walking wounded, maybe. 

Not long after that, Allenby came back in, with another of Barrow’s men—the slow lad, Plank. 

“—the mess, sir, I think,” he was saying. 

Allenby felt Barrow’s pulse at his neck and his bad arm. “Doing all right, Sergeant?”

“Sure,” said Tully. 

“Good.” Allenby listened to Barrow’s heart with the stethoscope, and nodded. “He’s doing much better. I don’t think we’ll need you just now,” he said to Plank.

“You sure, sir? I don’t mind.”

“I’d rather keep you in reserve,” Allenby explained. “In case he starts bleeding again. In the meantime, you’d better go and get some rest—you can take Wallace with you, and keep an eye on him.” The runty lad started getting up, and Allenby told him, “Have something to drink, first, to replace the fluids you’ve lost. And eat some meat, next chance you get, to build your blood back up. And you shouldn’t donate again for at _least_ a week—best to wait a month, if there’s anyone else available. All right?”

“Yes, sir,” said Wallace. 

Before he left, Plank leaned over Barrow and loudly, “Mittens is all right. I opened two tins of sardines for him.”

Allenby shook his head slightly as the two lads left. 

“Their cat,” Tully explained, thinking of Barrow drunkenly blurting out that his mates were planning to get a cat. 

“Yes, he was telling me on the way here.” Allenby sighed. “It takes a unique sort of person, to carry wounded men off a battlefield all day, and then walk half a mile to feed a cat.” 

Unique was one way of putting it. Touched in the fucking head was another. 

After checking Barrow’s bandages, Allenby circled round the bed to check Tully’s pulse. “You’re feeling all right? Any light headedness?”

“Right as rain,” Tully said. 

“We’ll keep this going another few minutes, then. After that, you should sit for at least twenty minutes—half an hour if you can manage it. Every once in a while, the donor will just keel over after one of these.” Allenby paused. “Faint, I mean. Not die. That would be awful.” He laughed as he said it, with an edge of hysteria to it.

Well, it had been a long day for everyone, Tully supposed. 

“I’m sorry,” Allenby said. “It’s just—it would be awful. If that did happen, we’d never do a blood transfusion at all. But it’s perfectly all right if they get killed trying to kill somebody else.” He laughed again. “It’s not funny.”

“You might want to get some sleep, son,” Tully advised. “Before too much longer.”

Allenby pulled himself together. “I expect you’re right,” he said. “It’s not long till dawn now—perhaps things will slow down a bit then.” He left, presumably to check on another patient or two while the transfusion finished. 

Tully poke idly at the tube that was carrying his lifeblood into Barrow’s veins. Still pretty creepy, he thought, and lit another cigarette.

At the rasp of the lighter, Barrow’s eyes fluttered open. 

#

“Stay down, son,” the Wardmaster said, before Thomas had woken up enough to think of moving. He wouldn’t have, anyway. While he’d been asleep, he’d remembered what the screens meant. “You’re all right.”

No, he wasn’t, but Thomas decided not to argue about it. “I’m glad you’re here,” he said, or something like it. 

“Yeah,” the Wardmaster said. He was smoking a cigarette, and held it out. “Want a puff off of this?” Thomas nodded, and the Wardmaster held it to his lips, saying, “I’m not giving you one of your own—you’d probably pass out and set yourself on fire.”

That would be a fairly bad way to go, Thomas thought, inhaling. The smoke made him feel a bit sharper, more alert—as though he were floundering in heavy fog, instead of murky water. Looking over at the Wardmaster, he noticed a tube, running from the Wardmaster’s arm to his. “What’s that?” he asked.

“Blood transfusion,” the Wardmaster said. 

Obviously, but.... “Why?”

“Because you’re not doing a very good job keeping your blood inside your fucking body, son,” the Wardmaster said. 

Well, yes, but he didn’t know why they’d bother. Not if he was dying anyway. But he supposed the Wardmaster didn’t want to talk about that. Thomas supposed he wouldn’t, either, if it were the other way around.

It wouldn’t be so bad, though. If there was an afterlife, Peter’d be there. And if not, he’d be in no position to care. Rawlins would take it hard, though. “Rawlins?” he asked.

“He’s fine,” the Wardmaster said. “Took over running your section for you. They came back about an hour ago.” He paused. “Plank wants you to know he fed the fucking cat. In case that’s been weighing on you.”

Thomas laughed, which made his shoulder hurt, and the Wardmaster lean over to check his dressing. 

Captain Allenby came in about then. “He’s awake?”

“Sort of,” said the Wardmaster.

Allenby checked his dressing, too. “You’ve been giving us rather a lot to worry about.”

“Sorry,” Thomas said vaguely. He understood that they were trying to make light of the situation, but he’d have rather they found a way to do it other than pretending he was dying on purpose just to annoy them. “We win yet?”

“Hm?” Allenby asked, withdrawing the needle from his arm. 

“The war,” he explained. “Wasn’t this supposed to be the day we started winning?”

“Didn’t quite go the way the brass planned, son,” the Wardmaster said. “But don’t worry about that now.”

“I heard there’ve been some gains,” Allenby added. “But not like they were hoping, no.”

“Guessed that when they all started falling back into the trench,” Thomas noted. 

Allenby made a small, questioning sound, and the Wardmaster explained, “Casualties. Some of the poor buggers didn’t even make it over the fucking parapet before they were shot.”

Allenby pressed his fingers to the crook of Thomas’s elbow—checking his pulse, obviously, but it felt nice. He closed his eyes for a moment. 

He opened them again when the Wardmaster lit another cigarette. That reminded him of something. Peter’s lighter. He wanted to hold it. Maybe the cigarette case, too. He reached for his pocket—careful to use his good arm—but they’d changed him out of his uniform. “Where’s my stuff?” he asked.

“Hm?”

“My lighter and stuff,” he clarified. “I need it.”

“Not sure, son,” the Wardmaster said. “Here.” He leaned over and gave Thomas another drag from his cigarette.

That wasn’t the point, but Thomas took it. After blowing out the smoke, he added, “It was Peter’s.”

“The lighter?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll try and find out where it went,” the Wardmaster said.

“Ta. I want it with me. When.” He supposed they could bury it with him, if they didn’t find it in time. 

“All right, son. Don’t worry about it now. You need your rest.”

He nodded a little, and closed his eyes again.

#

After Jessop returned the walking wounded tent to relieve him, Rawlins headed for C Block to check on Barrow again. He knew he ought to go and rest instead—hadn’t the Wardmaster made a speech about that very thing?—but he couldn’t help feeling that it had been a stroke of Providence that he had been there to see that Barrow was bleeding.

Besides, one of the wounded had given Rawlins his tin of strengthened snuff, saying, “Looks like you need this more than me now, mate,” and after taking a pinch of it, he felt like he could keep going for days. Weeks, if necessary.

He did hesitate a little, though, when he saw the Wardmaster sitting by Barrow’s beside. “He’s all right,” he told Rawlins.

“Oh, good. I just—came to check, you know.”

The Wardmaster nodded. “I should tell you to go get some rest—but I make it a fucking habit not to give an order I wouldn’t follow myself.” 

“I couldn’t sleep anyway,” Rawlins admitted. “Have you tried this stuff?” He took the tin out of his pocket and displayed it. Probably not wise, but honestly, he felt a bit giddy. “It’s like magic.”

“Oh, hell yes,” the Wardmaster said, holding out his hand for the tin. He took a substantial pinch. “Takes me back. Diggs _lived_ on this shit in South Africa.”

It took Rawlins a moment to remember who Diggs even was. He was still working at the 47th, but since Lamble’s death, he’d become such a complete nonentity that Rawlins had almost forgotten he existed. 

Captain Allenby came in about then, and the Wardmaster handed him the tin, saying, “This’ll cure what ails you.”

Allenby raised his eyebrows at it, but took a pinch. “Don’t give him any,” he warned, nodding at Barrow. “We’re having enough trouble keeping him quiet without giving him _cocaine_.” After snorting it, he moved to hand the tin back to the Wardmaster, who gestured to Rawlins. Allenby gave it to him, saying, “Be careful with that—it can give you a heart attack if you overdo it.”

Rawlins nodded, and the Wardmaster heaved himself up out of the chair. “If you’re keeping an eye on him, I’d better get back to work.” To Allenby, he said, “You need me again, you know where to find me.”

Allenby nodded, and once the Wardmaster had left, updated Rawlins on the case. “He’s out of danger now, but we’ll want to keep an eye out for another bleed.” He checked his watch. “I’ll give him some more morphine in about an hour—until then, if you can make sure he doesn’t try to get up...?”

“Yes, sir,” Rawlins said. 

Lowering his voice, Allenby added, “Oh, and—we’re not mentioning Drover, if we can avoid it.”

Yeah, Barrow wasn’t going to take that well. “I understand.”

After Allenby left, Rawlins took over the Wardmaster’s vacated seat. After a while, he noticed he was nervously jogging his leg up and down, and forced himself to stop. 

It was actually a little dull, sitting next to Barrow while he slept. When the orderlies actually on duty in the ward started getting patients ready to go out on the next convoy, Rawlins went out and helped them a bit—but as soon as he wasn’t watching Barrow, he started worrying that he was bleeding out again, so once they started taking them out, he hurried back to Barrow’s bedside.

Barrow still looked asleep, but when Rawlins checked his dressing, he said, “Convoy?”

“Yeah,” Rawlins said. “They’re running them all night.” 

Barrow reached for his cigarettes—a gesture Rawlins knew well, since he did it often enough—but since they’d taken him out of his uniform, he wouldn’t have them. Rawlins got out his own and handed Barrow one. “Ta. Where’s my lighter?”

Rawlins didn’t have the faintest idea, and offered Barrow his own instead. Barrow squinted at it for a moment, until Rawlins realized he was already holding the cigarette in the only good hand he had. “I’ll get it. Here.” He held the flame to the tip of the cigarette, and together they got it lit. 

Barrow smoked for a moment or two, but then said, “I need mine, though.”

True enough; Rawlins wasn’t going to be able to sit here with him forever. “Keep mine,” he suggested. He could get some matches somewhere.

Barrow shook his head. “I need mine,” he repeated. “It was Peter’s.” 

Oh. “I’ll look for it,” Rawlins promised. God knew whether he’d actually be able to _find_ it, but once he was feeling better, Barrow would understand if he couldn’t. Right now, the main thing was that he didn’t worry himself over it. 

“’kay,” said Barrow. He shut his eyes, and Rawlins would have thought he’d fallen asleep again, except that he kept moving his cigarette, unerringly, between his mouth and the dish, showing evidence of prior use as an ash-tray, which Rawlins had put on the blanket for him. Once he’d finished the cigarette, he said, “You’re gonna look for it? It was Peter’s. Gave it to me so….so he could always light ‘em for me.”

“I’ll look for it,” Rawlins said again. Did Barrow want him to look for it _now_? Perhaps he should—the ruined uniforms would be burned sooner or later. “Once they finish loading up the convoy, I’ll ask the orderly where your uniform went.” 

“All right. S’pose I can wait that long.”

He didn’t sound to certain about it, but Rawlins said, “You’ll manage.” 

He wondered if Barrow might take it into his head to get up and look for the lighter himself, but fortunately, he drifted off again. 

Before long, the sounds of convoy-loading—footsteps, grunts of effort, questions about “are we taking this one?”—stopped, and Rawlins heard the orderly for this ward sigh wearily and start stripping beds. He went out and helped with a few before asking, “Do you know where his personals might have got to?” He nodded toward Barrow’s screens.

The orderly shrugged wearily. “Dunno.” Rawlins offered him the snuff; he took some and brightened up considerably. “Say, that’s pretty good…uh, let’s see.” He pointed to a stack of pay-books on the desk in the middle of the ward. “If he’s in there, his uniform went out to the burn pile. No idea if they burned it, or checked for personals before they did—sorry.”

Rawlins checked through the pay books. There weren’t many of them. “His isn’t here.”

“Sink room, then,” the orderly said. “Started throwing them in there when we stopped having time to fish out the pay books. Anything that was in his tunic should still be in it. Trousers, God knows. Could be in there, could be in the burn pile, could be in the laundry.”

Barrow kept the lighter in his tunic, so that was all right. “Thanks.”

The orderly nodded. “No problem.” As Rawlins turned to go to the sink room, he added, “Say—who _is_ he? I mean, I know he’s the Magnificent Bastard. But is he, like— _General Haig’s_ bastard? Or the king’s?”

“No,” Rawlins said. Well, not that he knew, anyway, and it really wasn’t likely—would he have been a footman, then? “He’s our mate, that’s all.”

The orderly looked at him with disbelief. “Lots of people’s mates out there in the tent,” he pointed out.

That was true, and Rawlins supposed if you looked at it that way, it really wasn’t fair. But this was Barrow. “He’s ours,” Rawlins said, and escaped to the sink room.

The room smelt like a butcher shop, thanks to the pile of blood-stiffened uniforms in the corner. Or at least starting in the corner—it looked to have toppled over at one point, and now was spread halfway across the floor. 

Rawlins looked at it for a moment, and took another pinch of snuff—as much for the smell as anything else. “Well,” he said to no one in particular, “at least it’s not severed limbs.”

In fact, it didn’t take him nearly as long as he’d feared to find Barrow’s uniform. Most of the pile was officers’ ones, and since they were a different color, it wasn’t too hard to pick out the enlisted men’s ones. And of those, most of the time you could still tell whether or not they had corporal’s stripes on the sleeves, he only had to actually check the pockets of a few before he found Barrow’s.

When he did, Rawlins realized that he could have just followed his nose—it reeked of disinfectant. Barrow must have practically bathed in the stuff. The bloody parts were actually still a bit pliable, since disinfectant solution didn’t clot. 

Luckily, the lighter was still tucked inside one of the pockets—it didn’t occur to Rawlins until he’d found it that it could very well have fallen out when the tunic was tossed onto the pile. For good measure, he got out Barrow’s pay book and then checked the rest of his pockets. He found a packet of cigarettes, so soaked with blood and disinfectant that Rawlins was sure even Barrow wouldn’t try to smoke them, a watch, and a cigarette case. Rawlins hadn’t even known he owned one.

That was soaked, too—not too much blood, but a lot of disinfectant had made its way inside the case. Rawlins threw out the cigarettes, but put back the photo and the letter that was tucked behind it. They were considerably worse for wear, too, but since the picture was of a youngish man in RAMC uniform, Rawlins didn’t think there was much chance of Barrow getting another one. It had to be the dead brother. 

Funny, he didn’t look a _thing_ like Barrow. Light hair, and a sort of round face. 

With a mental shrug, Rawlins gathered the things up, cleaned them as best he could, and went back to Barrow’s bedside. He was still down for the count, but the dressing looked good, and his pulse was strong. Rawlins put the lighter in his good hand, folding his fingers around it, and sat back down.

That turned out to be a minor mistake. When Captain Allenby came in, not too much later, he picked up Barrow’s arm to take his pulse, and the lighter slipped out of his hand and onto the floor with a clatter like the Last Trumpet.

Well, if the Last Trumpet were a clatter and not a…trumpet. 

In any case, it was enough to wake Barrow up. While Captain Allenby was admonishing him to stay still, Rawlins scrabbled about under the bed until he found the lighter. 

“Since you’re awake,” Allenby was saying when he emerged, “I’ll save the injection for someone who needs it.” He got out some morphine tablets and helped Barrow swallow them. “All right, then?” he asked, his hand lingering a moment on Barrow’s jaw.

“Mm-hm,” Barrow said. 

“I’ll be back to check on you later,” Allenby said, and left. 

Barrow raised his head slightly, and asked Rawlins, “Is that my—”

“Yes,” Rawlins said, putting the lighter in his hand again. “And I found this, too,” he added, putting the cigarette case on the blanket. 

“Good.” 

He fumbled the case open, and Rawlins added, “The cigarettes were ruined.”

“That’s fine,” Barrow said, sounding slightly amused. “C’n I have one of yours?”

“Sure.” 

This time, he put it in Barrow’s mouth, and Barrow lit it with his own lighter. Once he had it going, he fumbled for the case again, propping the picture up so he could see it and getting out the letter. “Read that,” he commanded, holding it out in Rawlins’s direction.

“You’re bossy when you get shot,” Rawlins noted, taking it. 

“Please,” Barrow added.

“I’m doing it; I’m just saying.” 

“You don’t have to stay, after that,” Barrow said. “I’ve got what I need.”

Rawlins nodded; Allenby had said as much, too—once the new dose of morphine took effect, they wouldn’t need to worry much about Barrow trying to get up again. He unfolded the letter—slightly damp with disinfectant, and began to read. “Dear Thomas.” He wasn’t sure he’d known that Barrow’s first name was Thomas. “‘I hope you felt me waving to you from’ some place that’s been crossed out. ‘I was there earlier today, after completing my first voyage on His Majesty’s Hospital Ship Al—’” 

Rawlins stopped. He hadn’t quite realized what it was he was reading, until he saw the word _Albion_. His brother’s last words. Or the last ones Barrow would ever know about, anyway. “Are you sure you want to hear this right now?”

“Yeah,” Barrow said. “Keep reading.”

Rawlins kept reading. By the time he got to the part about “‘It makes a nice change from the dressing-station,’” Barrow’s eyes were shut, and Rawlins had had to take away his cigarette after it dipped perilously close to the blankets, but he kept reading, just in case Barrow was still listening, all the way up to “‘Light a cigarette for me.” 

That explained the business with the lighter, he supposed. “And then he signs it, ‘Affectionately yours, P.F.’ Do you want to hear it again?”

Barrow didn’t answer, so Rawlins re-folded the letter and put it back in the cigarette case. “Your brother sounds nice,” he said. “Wish I’d known him.” 

#

The next time Thomas woke up, the screen was removed from the foot of the bed, and sunlight was streaming in through the windows on the opposite wall of the ward. His shoulder hurt like hell, but apart from that, he didn’t feel too bad, really. 

And he was most definitely alive, which he wasn’t quite sure how he felt about. Rawlins would be glad, he supposed. And the Wardmaster, too, probably.

It wasn’t until an orderly he didn’t know brought him a breakfast tray that he began to consider that he might have fundamentally misunderstood the situation. The tray, he noted as the orderly briskly stuffed some bolsters behind his back, so he could sit up enough to eat it, held only porridge and tea, but it was on a tray-cloth, and the tea was in a crockery cup, not a tin one. Because he was in an officers’ ward. 

Really, the position of the windows should have given it away. Still, before the orderly left, he asked, “What ward is this?”

“It’s _meant_ to be Officers’ Medical,” the orderly said, his tone aggrieved. “C Block.”

Right. That explained the screens. Quite possibly, he had never been dying at all. 

That still left a few questions, which Thomas mulled over as he sorted out how to eat his breakfast one-handed. First among them, if he _wasn’t_ dying, why was he still here? Convoys had gone out; he was fairly sure he’d talked to Rawlins about at least one of them. And the Wardmaster had said they weren’t keeping anyone overnight, unless he was….

Oh, that was right. Unless they were rejoining their Maker _or their unit_ before morning. 

Even if he wasn’t dying, Thomas didn’t think his wound was quite _that_ minor. Hadn’t there been something about a blood transfusion? But it had been a hell of a day, yesterday—the little of it Thomas had seen before being shot, and the bits and pieces he remembered from afterwards. It could be there were enough men worse off than he was, that they needed him for whatever he could manage one-handed. It was his _left_ arm that was out of action, after all. He could write tally-cards, or count out pills, or something.

He could probably do the linen chitty, if they were bothering with that today. 

After collecting the breakfast trays, the orderlies began preparing patients for the morning convoy. There wasn’t anything Thomas could do other than get in the way, so he stayed where he was, and smoked a cigarette. Somebody had left him some, tucked under his pillow with his lighter, watch, and cigarette case. Probably Rawlins. 

When they started taking patients out for the convoy, Corporal Jessop showed up with a clipboard, ticking them off on a list. Once the ward was nearly emptied out, he wandered over to Thomas’s bed and checked his dressing. “How’re you feeling, lad?”

“Not bad,” Thomas said, and winced as Jessop probed at the wound with a bit of gauze. “Bit sore,” he noted.

Jessop shot him a sharp look, and reached for the chart hanging at the foot of the bed. “Did they give you any pills this morning?”

“No.” Unless they’d been on the tray and he’d missed them.

“Bide there a minute.” He left, and returned a moment later with a bottle of morphine tablets and a glass of water. 

“I’m not going to be good for much if I take those,” Thomas pointed out. 

The look Jessop gave him was surprisingly tender. “You’ve done enough, lad. Just rest now.”

Maybe he’d been wrong about the dying thing, he thought, as he swallowed the pills Jessop gave him. This was very confusing. “It’s not that bad, is it?” he asked. 

“Not now,” Jessop said, after a moment. “You gave us all a bit of a scare last night.” 

Oh.

“Turned out to be a right good thing Tully kept you here,” Jessop added. “Rawlins and young Captain Allenby kept an eye on you most of the night, but they’ve got their heads down now, and your mates are back on duty before long, so you just be quiet and don’t do anything to tear this open again, all right?”

“All right,” Thomas agreed. What had he done before, to tear it open? He vaguely remembered staggering around the Aid Post—or maybe it was the collecting post—looking for disinfectant. Probably that, though it had seemed a good idea at the time. Where his wound was, there wasn’t anything they could cut off if it got infected. 

“You got it cleaned out well enough yesterday,” Jessop added, which rather confirmed Thomas’s guess about what he’d been alluding to. “And I’ll come along and change the dressing on it later—unless Tully gets to it first. Or Allenby.”

Thomas nodded sleepily. The morphine was starting to creep up on him, and he was asleep again before he’d noticed Jessop leaving.

#

After seeing off the convoy, Jessop was due back in the walking wounded tent, but instead of going there, he grabbed some bread and tea from the mess and took them into Tully’s office. He was near sure the man hadn’t slept, and he at least needed something in him that wasn’t alcoholic. What with having had the blood drained out of him, especially. 

Tully was on the telephone when he got there, but started clearing a spot on his desk for the food. “Yes. Yes, sir, we can take more, if we get the supplies for them. We’re sending them rearward almost as fast as we get them, but every one of them takes a fucking blanket and a stretcher with them. Uh-huh. Yeah. Morphine, too. We’re giving it out like it’s fucking sweeties. Yeah. I’ll send over a list.” 

He banged the receiver down, shaking his head. “Advanced Stores is out of everything,” he said, reaching for a piece of bread and cramming it into his mouth. “Thwait’s got to ‘phone Base Stores; fuckers won’t listen to me.”

Jessop nodded. It was an ongoing torment to Tully that the behind-the-lines units didn’t grasp that he actually ran the 47th. 

Gulping down some of the tea, Tully asked, “How’s the lad? You see him?”

“He’s all right,” Jessop said. “Hadn’t had any morphine for about six hours, and I think he was planning to get up and work.”

“Christ. You got him settled down?”

“Course.” 

“I’ll have a word with him later,” Tully said. “What’ve we got coming in?”

“Not much,” Jessop said. “Walking cases getting in on their own, mostly. Collecting post is clear of stretcher cases, and both ADS’s holding their own last I heard.”

Tully nodded. “Huns are shelling the living fuck out of our line. We’ll be slammed again at nightfall, but nobody’s moving wounded right now. Bearer sections’ job for the day is to rest and get ready to go back out at dusk; ward sections, get as close to clear as we can manage before the next lot start coming in.” He paused. “Except for Barrow. We’re keeping Barrow.”

#

“—across the way, if you’d rather,” the Wardmaster was saying. “Just for a couple more days.”

The screens were back up around Thomas’s bed, but the light coming in through them suggested it was much later in the day. He could see the Wardmaster and someone else, silhouetted through them.

“I think he’s fine where he is,” Captain Allenby replied. “It’s a bit easier to keep an eye on him in the smaller ward—especially if he keeps getting visitors around the clock—and nobody’s complained.”

“Any trouble about the other thing?”

“Hm?”

“From Linwood or anybody.”

“Oh, that. No. Ran into him in the mess, actually, and he didn’t tear my head off, so either he hasn’t heard, or doesn’t mind.”

“Huh. Good.” 

Allenby moved off, and the Wardmaster stuck his head around the screens. “All right there, son?”

Thomas nodded. “Jessop said I wasn’t supposed to get up.” 

“He’s right; you’re fucking not,” the Wardmaster said, coming the rest of the way through the screens. He was carrying a dressing-tray. “Let’s see about that wound of yours, hm?”

When the Wardmaster peeled away the old dressing, Thomas tried to get a look at his wound, but the spot it was in, he couldn’t see it very well. 

“It’s fine,” the Wardmaster said. “Not going fucking septic or nothing. This is gonna sting,” he added, applying disinfectant. 

It did. “Fuck,” Thomas said. “Pretty sure that hurts worse than getting shot.”

“Yep,” the Wardmaster said. “Here, sit up—careful now.” 

Oh, right. There’d be an exit wound, on his back. 

He said as much, and the Wardmaster replied, “This one’s the entry wound, actually.”

“Really?” It had felt like he’d been hit in the chest.

“Yeah. Bullet bounced off your shoulder blade, and picked up a bit of a wobble, is why it did so much fucking damage on the way out.” He applied some antiseptic there, too. “Probably fractured, but x-ray’s tied up with surgical cases, and it’s not like we’d do anything other than immobilize the bugger, anyway.”

The shoulder blade was fractured, Thomas guessed, not the bullet. That sounded like it would take more than a couple of days’ convalescence, though. “Are you gonna send me away?”

The Wardmaster settled him back against the pillow. “We’re keeping you here for now,” he said.

That wasn’t a no, and Thomas realized suddenly that he didn’t want to go somewhere else and be looked after by strangers. He wanted to stay here, with Rawlins and the Wardmaster and Jessop and Allenby and even the God-damned cat. But he couldn’t say that, could he? “Oh.”

“Everybody else is just as fucking busy as we are,” the Wardmaster added, “and we want to make sure you’re looked after properly.” 

Right. They were busy, and he couldn’t expect to keep taking up space in the ward while he got better. But what if…. “I could go back to the barn,” he blurted out. “Convalesce there. Not just yet, but once I’m a little better. The others could look after me.”

“Son,” the Wardmaster said, very gently. 

“I could walk back in for dressing changes,” he added. “Maybe help out a bit.”

The Wardmaster looked pained. “I’m pretty sure you’ve got a Blighty one, son. Shoulder wounds are tricky, but…I’m pretty sure.”

Oh. Eyes stinging, he shook his head. “I don’t….” _Want to go_ was the end of that sentence, but when had it ever fucking mattered what he wanted?

“Yeah,” the Wardmaster said. He finished putting the new dressing on, and sat back to light a cigarette. Two, actually; he handed one to Thomas. “I’ll make sure they know we want you back if it’s possible, but I’d wager you’re looking at a long time before you have full use of that arm.” He took a long pull on his cigarette before adding, with obvious reluctance, “If ever.”

That was worse than he thought. You couldn’t even be a footman without two good arms. “Oh,” he said again.

“Yeah. It’s fucking shit, but that’s how it is.” He shook his head. “We’re keeping you here until things slow down, or we’re damn sure you’re done hemorrhaging, and there’s no sign of infection. The way things are right now, once we put you on a convoy, could be days before anyone takes a good look at you.”

Thomas nodded. “I see.”

“It’s gonna take a specialist, to look at all the ligaments and shit, figure out what you can expect. That probably means a Base hospital, at least.”

It took ages to get sent forward again from a Base hospital; that was why the Dressing and Casualty Clearing Stations had space for short-term convalescents, normally. 

“From there, it’s a good chance they send you home.”

Home. He supposed the prospect would be tempting, if he had one. “Well, that’s something to look forward to.”

“Yeah,” said the Wardmaster. He seemed to be making as much of an effort to sound cheerful about it as Thomas was. “Lucky sod.” 

#

“Anna,” Mr. Carson said. He was at the head of the servants’ hall table, handing out the post. 

He passed her item to Mrs. Hughes; her eyes fell on it as she handed it on to Anna. “Is it—?” 

It was a field postcard, Thomas’s name scratched at the bottom—not in his hand. “It’s from Thomas,” she confirmed, and went on to read aloud the pre-printed phrases that had not been crossed out. “‘I have been admitted into hospital, wounded. I am being sent down to the base.’ It’s dated the third.” She looked around the table at the others. “What do you suppose that means?” 

“I expect,” said Miss O’Brien, acidly, “it means he’s been wounded, and is being sent down to the base.”

“Yes, thank you, Miss O’Brien,” said Mrs. Hughes. “How badly wounded, is what we’d like to know.”

Anna handed her the card. “It’s not his writing.” 

She looked at it. “No, it certainly is not.”

“Perhaps we’ll hear something more soon,” Mr. Bates suggested. 

Maybe, but he’d crossed out the line about a letter following at first opportunity. “We should write to him, to cheer him up,” Anna said. “I expect the letters will catch up to him at the ‘base,’ if he’s already gone.” 

A short while later, when Lady Mary’s bell rang—quite early for her—Mr. Carson stopped Anna at the foot of the stairs, and handed her another field postcard. “Lady Mary may want to see this before she comes down.”

“Of course.” She took a peek at it as she hurried up the stairs. It was from Mr. Matthew, as she’d guessed it must be, and said “Quite well” and “Letter follows.” There was no particular reason Lady Mary couldn’t read that at the breakfast table—but perhaps Mr. Carson had scrupulously averted his eyes from everything except the address. 

Lady Mary was sitting up on the edge of the bed, her dressing gown across her lap. “Good morning, my lady,” Anna said.

“Good morning,” Lady Mary replied, with a sigh. “Has the post come yet?”

“It has,” Anna said, and handed her the postcard. “Mr. Carson thought you’d want to see this right away.”

Lady Mary went even paler than usual when she saw it, but then brought a hand to her mouth, letting out an “Oh” of relief, as she read it. “He’s all right. It doesn’t say whether he was involved in the fighting or not—of course it wouldn’t—but he’s all right.”

“Wonderful news, my lady.” Going to the wardrobe to get out Lady Mary’s dress for the day, Anna asked, “May I tell the others, when I go back down? They’ll all be glad to hear it.”

“Of course.” 

As she dressed her, Anna told Lady Mary, “We’ve had a field postcard from Thomas, as well. He says he’s been wounded.”

“How dreadful.”

“Yes, my lady. Of course, it doesn’t give you any idea of how serious it is, so we’re hoping he writes soon.”

“Papa could check with the War Office,” Lady Mary suggested.

“Perhaps, if we haven’t heard from him after a while,” Anna said. “I wouldn’t like to trouble his lordship.” Privately, she thought that the War Office likely had a great deal else to be concerned with at the moment. Casualty lists from the Somme Offensive were starting to come out, and they were staggering. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Strengthened snuff was snuff (tobacco powder) mixed with cocaine. It could be purchased legally from pharmacies, and was used by some WWI soldiers to stay awake for long periods. 
> 
> 2) The first recorded, successful blood transfusions were done in the 1600’s, but up until the Great War, transfusion was a risky, experimental treatment of last resort. Doctors knew that the transfused blood was often rejected by the body, and that using a relative as the donor reduced this risk, but why this was the case remained a mystery until the early 1900’s, when blood groups (or types, in American English) were recognized. At this point, blood transfusion became less risky, but application was limited because both the donor and the recipient had to be tested and matched before the transfusion could be done—and in an emergency involving massive blood loss, there often wasn’t time. 
> 
> The next piece of the puzzle was identifying one group—now called Type O—as the universal donor. (The other types—A, B, and AB—contain antigens labeled as A and B, with type AB having both. Type O was originally type _zero_ because it has none of the “extra” antigens.) This discovery allowed donors to be identified in advance, and eliminated the need to test the recipient’s blood type. (For various reasons that I frankly do not understand, it’s _better_ to use the recipient’s actual blood type, but Type O will do in a pinch.)   
> My sources were all a little vague on exactly _when_ transfusion using pre-identified Type O donors came into use on the Western Front, but it was somewhere around the middle of the war. The fictional 47th Ambulance is probably a bit ahead of the curve when it comes to adopting this innovation. 
> 
> These early transfusions were always direct—straight from the donor’s vein to the recipient’s—because, unless it’s treated with preservatives, blood begins to coagulate as soon as it leaves the circulatory system. As noted in the story, this problem drastically limited the availability of transfusion in the field and in mass-casualty situations. Medical researchers were actively and urgently working on identifying effective preservatives, and by the end of the war, preserved blood was in limited use, although the blood could usually only be stored for a few days. By the _Second_ World War, transfusion using bottled blood was routine.


	18. Chapter 15:  July-August, 1916

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas goes to the Base Hospital.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Notes: The usual medical gore, + an original character death. (See endnote if you want the spoiler.) 
> 
> Also, a trans character is referred to using a term that was polite at the time, but isn't today.

Thomas stayed on the ward at the 47th for four more days—that was how long it took, for the last of the wounded from that first, disastrous day of the offensive to be cleared from the battlefield, and for the flow of wounded into the station to finally slow down.

The others visited him when they could. Most everyone from the section, and from the old section, stopped by at least once; he was relieved to see them all alive. They brought him tea and cigarettes and, when his time for departure grew near, his spare uniform and the rest of his things from the barn. They all—especially Rawlins—talked with determined cheerfulness of how lucky he was to be going back to Blighty for a bit, but pretended to think he’d be back before long. 

Thomas knew better. Captain Allenby, on one of his visits, concurred with the Wardmaster’s prediction, saying, “I’m afraid use of that arm is going to be limited for a long time.” He went on to talk about severed ligaments, and muscle wastage from reduced blood flow, and various other medical details, but Thomas didn’t make much of an effort to follow it. 

“You were lucky, really,” he added, and talked about how, that first night, Thomas had lost enough blood to be really worrisome, and something about tying off the artery that had been causing all the trouble, which probably would have lost him the arm. 

He didn’t feel very lucky. It was ungrateful of him, really. Especially when the time came for him to be crammed full of morphine and put onto a charabanc bound for the Casualty Clearing Station. Nearly everyone else—all the other walking cases—were still in the muddy, bloodstained rags in which they’d come from the battlefield, having gotten little more than a morphine injection and, if they were lucky, a clean dressing on their wound before being loaded into the charabanc like so many unwashed and unshaven cattle. 

Thomas, on the other hand, was cleaned up and very nearly presentable in his spare uniform, and quite a few of his friends were there to see him off, pressing packets of cigarettes on him and extracting promises to write and tell them how he was getting on. Jessop had saved a seat for him near the front, where he could lean against the window, and Rawlins helped him into it, carefully putting his rucksack where he’d be able to grab it with his good hand when they reached the CCS. 

He was already starting to nod, by then, from the morphine, but felt he ought to say something. “Nice of everyone to come,” was the best he could come up with.

“Plank wanted to bring Mittens to say goodbye,” Rawlins confided. “But he scratched the hell out of him and shot up into the rafters.” 

“Give ‘im a sardine for me,” Thomas said. 

After that, he didn’t remember much. The drive to the Clearing Station could take as little as an hour on a good day; Thomas suspected that, today, it was a lot longer than that—the road was choked with traffic in both directions; supplies and reinforcements heading to the Front, companies of exhausted men trudging back—but he couldn’t have said for certain. 

Upon arrival, all of them were unceremoniously herded into an already-crowded tent near the railhead, and left more-or-less to their own devices for what could have been the rest of the day, or two or three days. Every now and then, a VAD girl would come around with tea, cigarettes, and morphine tablets. At least once there were sandwiches. At least once, Thomas saw the VAD girl try in vain to wake someone up, and then some time later two orderlies came in with a stretcher and hauled him away. 

Eventually, at night, they were loaded into an ambulance train. Morphine was issued right before, and Thomas was pleased with himself for managing to keep hold of his rucksack. 

The railway journey was much longer than the motor journey had been—all through the night and into the next day. The train kept stopping—shunted onto a siding, Thomas vaguely recalled, to give priority to trains carrying ammunition or reinforcements. Perhaps it was just as well, because they were in a converted freight car—the “conversion” consisted of little more than throwing some straw mattresses on the floor, and the addition of a primitive latrine in one corner—and the car couldn’t be entered while the train was moving. Sometimes, when they stopped, the sliding door on the side of the car would be thrown open, and an orderly or two would come and hand out food, water, and morphine tablets. Once in a while, they took someone away. 

“Where’s _he_ going?” the bloke next to Thomas wondered, as a man from a different part of the car was carried out feet-first.

“Hospital car,” Thomas said. “Maybe.” A lot of the stopping-places had sprouted clusters of rough wooden crosses next to them. 

Later—Thomas thought it was afternoon, probably; a bit of light was filtering in through the gaps in the walls—he participated in a desultory conversation about where they were going. Some know-it-all a few places down opined loudly that they were headed for Paris, and spoke knowledgeably and in detail about the girlie shows that could be seen there. “They take it all off. Everything. I mean, fucking _everything_.” 

“We’re not going to Paris,” Thomas said. “The Base hospitals are all on the Channel. Boulogne and Etaples and places like that.”

“How do you know?” the know-it-all asked.

The bloke next to Thomas said, “Cause he’s RAMC, ya cunt.” 

“Anyway,” Thomas added, “Peter used to work at one.”

“Yeah,” said the bloke next to him. “Peter used to work at one.” He paused. “Who the fuck is Peter?”

“My brother,” Thomas said. 

“Oh, hey,” the bloke said. “Maybe you’ll see him.”

“He’s dead,” Thomas told him. 

“Fuck. Sorry.” 

Somebody else said, “Well, that was fucking depressing. Let’s hear more about the girls that take everything off.” 

It was dusk when they arrived at the hospital. If anyone mentioned which one or where it was, Thomas didn’t notice, but it was on the grounds of some big hotel or casino. They were herded first into a mess tent, where they were given a hot meal—the usual Army stew, but after days of cold food and lukewarm tea, it made a change. After eating, they joined a queue to be glanced at by a medical officer or nursing sister, who assigned them to various wards. 

Thomas was directed to Ward E, which was a large marquee tent housing at least a hundred patients. A harried VAD nurse, who seemed to be the only person on duty in the entire ward, pointed him toward an empty bed. He stashed his rucksack under it and, for lack of anything better to do, lay down and had a smoke. 

“You just get here, then?” the bloke to his right asked. 

“Yeah,” Thomas said, flicking ash into the chamber pot he found under his bed. “You?”

“Couple days, I think,” he said. “I’m Preston.”

“Barrow,” Thomas said. 

“You have an extra one of those?” he asked, nodding toward Thomas’s cigarette.

Christ, they must be busy here, if the nurse wasn’t even handing out cigarettes. “Yeah, all right.” Handing it over, he got a look at the mess of filthy bandages that was wrapped haphazardly around Preston’s right leg. “You get that dressing changed since you’ve been here?”

“Nah,” Preston said, lighting the cigarette. “Every time the Sister walks by, she says she’ll get to it soon, but she’s right busy, you know?”

“Yeah,” Thomas said. It really wasn’t any of his business, but…. “How about I take a look?” At Preston’s look of skepticism, he added, “I’m RAMC.”

“All right,” he said. “If you want.”

Thomas finished his cigarette before moving over to Preston’s bed to have a look at the wound. The dressing was stiff and yellowed with pus, and the wound, when he finally uncovered it, stank of rot. “Yeah, that’s not good,” he said. The wound, just above the knee, was oozing greenish-yellow pus, and the area around it was red and swollen. Thomas didn’t see any of the reddened streaks that indicated the infection was spreading through the bloodstream, but as nasty as it looked, it wouldn’t be long. 

“And just what do you think you’re doing?” a female voice with a cut-glass accent said.

Thomas looked up to see the VAD girl standing over them, her hands on her hips. “Your job,” he said flatly. 

The girl’s face reddened, and Preston said, “Don’t give ‘er a hard time, mate. ‘e’s RAMC,” he added to the VAD.

“I’m sorry,” she said tartly. “It’s just that the Ward Sister doesn’t allow me to do dressing changes without supervision. I did plenty of them in England, but she…doesn’t approve of VADs,” she finished sheepishly. 

“Right,” Thomas said. “Well, this nice chap here, who doesn’t want to give you a hard time, is going to lose his leg if this doesn’t get cleaned out soon. So I’m going to do it. You can go and look for the Ward Sister, or go back over there by the tea urn and pretend you didn’t notice, or you can help me. It’s up to you.”

The young woman bit her lip. “I’ll fetch a dressing tray,” she finally said. 

“Good idea.” 

The VAD came back a moment later with the tray, and proved that she did know her way around a dressing change, swabbing the pus out until the wound was bleeding clean blood.

“How often do you get an MO doing rounds here?” Thomas asked as she worked.

“He came through yesterday morning,” she said. 

“Right. Well, the next time you see one, you’re going to want to wave him down to look at this. It’s probably going to need surgical debridement.” 

“What’s that?” Preston asked.

“They give you some anesthetic and clean it more thoroughly,” Thomas said, putting a bit of a gloss on it—the procedure actually involved cutting away dead and infected tissue. 

“I’m afraid this is going to hurt like the dickens,” the VAD added to Preston, picking up the bottle of antiseptic. 

Thomas was fairly impressed that Preston managed to restrict himself to a wordless cry and a “Bl-loomin’ heck!” in lieu of any actual swearwords. 

“I’m sorry,” the VAD said. “I’ll give you some more pain pills when this is finished.”

Thomas checked Preston’s tally-card to see when he’d last been given morphine, but the only things written on it were from the Dressing Station where Preston had originally been received. Apparently record-keeping, like dressing changes, was something they didn’t have time for here. 

While the VAD finished up with Preston, Thomas scrubbed his hands with disinfectant and started removing his own dressing. He’d have to get the VAD’s help—or somebody’s—dressing it again, but he was banking that, while she might balk if he asked, she’d go along if he didn’t give her much time to think about what Sister would say. 

He was right. After washing her own hands again, she sat on Thomas’s bed next to him and inspected the entry wound, which he couldn’t see for himself. “This doesn’t look too bad.”

“No, and I’d like to keep it that way,” Thomas said. “My mates looked after me pretty well, while I was still with me own unit.”

“Were you at the Front?” she asked, applying antiseptic. “Oh, you must’ve been, to be shot.”

“I was,” he said. “47th Field Ambulance. I mostly work—worked—at our Main Dressing Station, but they had some of us at the Front on the first day of the push.” 

“Is it as awful as they say?”

“Yes.” 

She waited for him to elaborate, but when he didn’t, moved on to re-dressing his wound. 

Once she was finished, Thomas put his tunic back on—right arm through the sleeve, left draped over his shoulder. He probably ought to have a sling or something, but as long as he kept his left elbow tucked against his side, it wasn’t too bad. “Anyone else we ought to do?” he asked.

The VAD looked uncertain. 

“Even if you didn’t know what you’re doing—and I can see you do—it can’t be worse than doing nothing,” Thomas pointed out. “As long as you wash your hands between cases. And your instruments.” 

“Sister Brown really is going to be ever so cross,” she said. 

“They’ve no business leaving you alone on a ward if they don’t trust you to do the job,” Thomas said. Which was true, but didn’t really matter, when you got down to it. He moved on. “But they did, and now what you’ve got to decide is which you’d rather risk: getting in trouble, or having some of these men get worse—or even die—and knowing you didn’t do everything you could to stop it.” He lit a cigarette. “I’ve tried it both ways, and…well, in a minute or so I’m going to take a bit of a walk and see if anybody else needs a dressing changed as badly as Preston here did.” It wasn’t as though they could put him on F.P. One in the state he was in. If it came down to it, he could pretend to be shocked they didn’t appreciate his pitching in, when they were so obviously shorthanded, and see how far that got him.

The VAD sat next to him and twisted her hands in her lap for a moment. “Right,” she finally said, getting up. “We’re going to need more supplies.”

They treated about a half a dozen cases together before the pain in Thomas’s shoulder got bad enough that he accepted a couple of morphine tablets from Nurse Fortescue, as the VAD girl turned out to be named. Then he propped himself up against a tent-pole and nodded vaguely in her direction while she did a couple more—as she explained, “If a Ward Corporal is the same thing as a Ward Sister, then if you’re watching, I’m really not disobeying Sister Brown at all, am I?”

Thomas was far from certain that that sort of parsing would cut any ice with the Sister in question, but didn’t argue. Before long, however, he got so unsteady on his feet that Nurse Fortescue had to lead him back to his bed. Not long after that, he had no idea whether Nurse Fortescue carried on changing dressings or not.

When he woke up next, a different VAD was giving Preston a breakfast tray. Turning to him, she said, “Shoulder wound, is it? Everyone who can walk has to go to the mess tent, I’m afraid.”

“Right,” Thomas said. “Nurse Fortescue go off duty?”

“Matron wanted to see her,” the other VAD said. “She might be back later.”

Thomas decided it was a bit too early in the day to start thinking about getting nurses out of trouble, so he shoved his feet into his boots—Nurse Fortescue must have taken them off of him after he passed out—and went off in search of a latrine and the mess tent, in that order.

While searching for the latrine, he stumbled across a bathing tent, and so acquired a third item for his to-do list. 

The mess tent, wonder of wonders, was serving up eggs and bacon. From what the other blokes at his table were saying, he gathered it was the first time since the beginning of the Push that they’d had more than porridge and toast. Having barely eaten in days—morphine suppressed your appetite, among other things—Thomas was glad of it. 

Without really thinking about it, he’d sat down with a group of orderlies, and after a while, one of them looked at him curiously and said, “Where’d you come from?”

“47th Field Ambulance,” he said. 

“Are you a _patient_?”

“Yeah,” Thomas said, realizing suddenly that he maybe wasn’t supposed to be sitting here. “I mean, technically. I guess.”

Somebody else said, “If you don’t watch out, they’re going to put you to work.”

“They already have,” Thomas said, although actually, he’d put himself to work. “Looks like you’re a bit shorthanded.”

“We are at that,” the first bloke said.

They talked for a while about how busy they were, and after a while someone said, “I s’pose it’s the same at the—which Field Ambulance did you say?”

“47th,” Thomas said. “I expect it was, but I got my packet about an hour in. It’s all a bit hazy after that.”

“You were at the Front when it started?” one of them asked.

“Yes,” Thomas said tersely, and fortunately, no one asked any more questions. 

They all finished eating and headed off to their duties, but Thomas lingered a bit over a cigarette and a second cup of tea—he figured that sooner or later he’d either be working or being chewed out for having worked yesterday, and while he wouldn’t mind the former very much, he wasn’t in too much of a hurry. 

When the mess workers—local women—started ostentatiously sweeping up around him, he decided it was time to move on. He arrived back at Tent E to find a medical officer, a Matron, a Ward Sister, and Nurse Fortescue all standing around Preston’s bed. Thomas was weighing the odds that he could slip in, grab his things, and be off to the bathing tent without being noticed, when the Ward Sister—the fearsome Sister Brown, presumably—said accusingly, “Corporal Barrow?”

Damn. He braced up, which his shoulder didn’t like very much, and said, “Sister.”

The Matron gave her a quelling look, and asked him, “Did you tell Nurse Fortescue to change this patient’s dressing?”

“No, Matron,” he said. “Not exactly. I said it badly needed to be done, as the wound was getting septic, and seeing as I’m experienced in ward duties, I’d do the best I could, one-handed like, if that was how it had to be.”

Nurse Fortescue spoke up. “And I decided I had better help. I knew I was going against Sister’s instructions, but I didn’t want it on my conscience if he lost his leg, or worse.”

“She did a right fine job of it, too,” Preston volunteered. 

The Sister ignored them both. “You had no right. I am the Sister on this ward, and I specifically instructed ‘Nurse’ Fortescue, and all of the volunteer girls, that I am to supervise all dressing changes.” Her accent, Thomas noted, was considerably more downmarket than Nurse Fortescue’s. 

It was on the tip of Thomas’s tongue to point out that she’d gotten more than a bit behind on the job, but he managed to swallow it and play dumb instead. “I’m sorry, Sister. I were only trying to help.”

The medical officer jumped in, “And you were quite right to do so.” To the Matron and Sister he continued, “This wound is badly infected, and Private Preston tells me it has received no attention since he arrived at this hospital. I understand the Sister’s feelings about nurses with limited training performing skilled work, but in the current situation, I’m not sure what choice we have.”

The Matron added, “Sister Brown is responsible for three wards of this size. It’s simply not possible for one person, however skilled, to perform regular dressing changes for so many patients.”

“Precisely,” said Sister Brown. “That is why I have been saying for _days_ that I need at least two _fully qualified_ nurses for each tent.”

“As you know,” the medical officer said, “we simply do not have them to give you. If you would rather have orderlies than voluntary nurses, I may be able to arrange that.” 

Sister Brown scoffed. “If there’s anything worse than a girl with a few weeks’ training, as a replacement for a _real_ nurse, it’s a _man_ with a few weeks’ training.”

Thomas gave her his best haughty glare at that, but she affected not to notice.

“Very well, then,” said the medical officer. “If you prefer the VAD nurses, you may keep them, as long as you make full use of what training they do have. I _recommend_ that, during this crisis, you focus on the most complicated of the dressing changes, and on examination of arriving patients. The VADs can perform the simpler dressing changes, and bring to your attention any cases that appear to be worsening.” 

Drawing herself up like a queen mounting the tumbrel, Sister Brown said, “If I must. In the current, as you say, crisis.”

“I’m glad you understand,” said the Matron. She glanced at Thomas and added, “I would also _recommend_ that you graciously accept any assistance that Corporal Barrow feels able to provide, during his time here.” To Thomas, she said, “You are, of course not obliged, but as you can see, we are handling a much larger number of patients than we’re accustomed to.”

“Yes, Matron,” Thomas said. “I’d just as soon work, really.” Since the alternative was to try and figure out what he’d do now that the Army was through with him, it was completely true—though even if it wasn’t, he’d likely have said it just to poke at Sister Brown.

Sister Brown smiled tightly, and said, sweet as a dove, “That’s very good of you, Corporal.”

“In that case,” said the medical officer, “I’ll leave you to it.” Suiting action to words, he continued, “Matron, I wonder if we could have a word about….”

Sister Brown shot a murderous glare at their departing backs, before saying to Nurse Fortescue, “I suppose you think you’ve won.”

“I only want what’s best for the patients, Sister,” Nurse Fortescue said meekly. 

She scoffed, glared at Thomas, muttered, “ _And_ you,” and swept out. 

The moment the trailing edge of her skirt had disappeared out the tent flap, Nurse Fortescue sat down on Thomas’s bed with a thump. “ _That_ went much better than I had expected.”

Thomas nodded. “I get the impression that M.O. has had about enough of Sister Brown. And Matron knows what side her bread is buttered on.”

“That wasn’t just any M.O.,” said Nurse Fortescue. “That was Colonel Whitehead—he’s the commander of the whole hospital.”

In that case, he _definitely_ had better things to be doing than settling Sister Brown’s hash. Grabbing his rucksack from under the bed, Thomas told Nurse Fortescue, “I meant what I said about helping, but it might be best if I had a wash and a shave first.”

“Oh, of course! The men’s bath tent is just, hm, if you go out that way, and make a left, it’s—is it a left?”

“I noticed it earlier,” Thomas said. “I think I can find it again. Back in a bit.”

Arriving at the bathing-tent, he discovered that actual tub baths were at present allowed only on medical orders, but a stand-up wash with a jug of hot water—along with as much cold water as you liked—could be had for the asking. So he availed himself of that option, and felt substantially more human. Even better, while he was shaving, a party of laundresses—more local women, whose appearance caused a lot of frantic reaching for towels—arrived with baskets of fresh shirts and underclothes. 

Thomas normally preferred to have his laundry done privately, as once you turned your things in, there was no telling what sort of rags they’d try to pawn off on you in exchange, but in the circumstances, he figured he’d better risk it. Fortunately, he managed to be near the front of the line, and so got fairly decent things.

He made a quick decision to skip the line for hospital blues, and hang on to his own uniform instead—he’d done a bit of tailoring to make it fit him better, and there wasn’t much chance he’d get the same one back if he let it out of his sight. However, once he’d gotten most of the way dressed again, he realized that there was a certain advantage to hospital blues: namely, you didn’t have to wear puttees with them. Getting his undershirt on and his trousers done up one-handed was difficult enough; wrapping puttees was simply impossible. 

Well, perhaps he’d get someone back in Tent E to help him. Preston owed him one, and had two good hands. 

Tying his bootlaces proved a similar problem; he ended up just pulling the laces as tight as he could and tucking the free ends inside his boots. And so he headed back to the tent clean, but not quite as put-together as he would have liked. 

When he arrived, he found Nurse Fortescue scrambling to simultaneously collect breakfast dishes and distribute shaving things and toothbrushes to the bed-bound patients. Thomas took over the former chore—there was a rolling cart to put the things on, so while doing it one-handed was slow going, it wasn’t particularly difficult. 

Near the end of the first row, he came upon a group of four or five men sitting up on their beds and chatting. All appeared to have light wounds, while several bed-cases nearby were patiently waiting for Nurse Fortescue to get around to them. “Oi,” Thomas said. “Any of you lot feel up to lending a hand?”

One of the men looked up at him and said vaguely, “What?”

But another was quicker to catch on. “Yes, Corp,” he said, and nudged the one next to him. “C’mon, Fred, the wee lass is run off her feet, and we sit here jawin’.”

After that, a few other light cases got up, unprompted, and collected what their neighbors needed from Nurse Fortescue’s cart.

“Well,” Nurse Fortescue said as the same men began returning the things to the cart, “I’m not sure Florence Nightingale would approve—but that was the quickest _that’s_ ever gone. And now I’ve time to do a few dressing-changes before lunch.”

They started the dressing changes with the ones they hadn’t got to yesterday. Thomas wasn’t much use when it came to applying dressings, but he didn’t have too much trouble with cutting away the old ones. He also updated their tally-cards, so that next time, they wouldn’t have to try and remember who had been “done” and who hadn’t. 

At mid-day, when the walking cases began making their way to the mess tent, a few hung back. “Should we help hand out the trays, miss, before we go get our own dinner?”

Nurse Fortescue looked startled, but recovered quickly. “If you’d be so kind,” she said. “I’ll be back in a tick with the trolley.”

With a few people helping, the bed-bound patients got their food while it was still a bit hot—a rarity, Thomas gathered—and the mess tent still had plenty to go around when they arrived. 

Afternoon turned out to be time for the Blighty convoy. Sister Brown put in an appearance, to read the list of men from their ward who would be leaving. It was about a dozen, with no rhyme or reason to it that Thomas could see—one of the men whose name was called had arrived with him last night, and another, Preston said, had already been here when he’d arrived, days ago. 

“I don’t know how she decides,” Nurse Fortescue said, as they were stripping the vacated beds. “Or if she does—it might be one of the medical officers.” A moment later, she added, “I suppose it’s mean of me to say, but I’m a bit glad she didn’t send you.”

“I don’t mind,” Thomas said. At the back of his mind lurked a hope that if he was kept here long enough, and made himself useful enough, they’d forget about sending him back to England at all. He was well aware that this notion wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny, and so did not scrutinize it. “We’re just starting to get things under control here, I reckon.”

After supper, an incoming convoy arrived, and they got a dozen new patients to replace the ones who had left. There were two bed-cases, brought in on stretchers by orderlies, and the rest walkers. As they settled in, Thomas heard one of the lads from the group he’d spoken to that morning tell a newcomer, “We’ve only got one nurse, so if you’re fit to be up and about, you’re meant to keep an eye out for the ones worse off than you.” 

By the next day, that was, indeed, accepted as the general practice on the ward; when it came time to distribute anything to the bed-bound patients, Nurse Fortescue didn’t have to do much more than roll the cart into the middle of the tent and then check to make sure that no one had been missed. 

When Thomas came back from lunch, Preston was missing from his bed. “They took him to surgery,” Nurse Fortescue explained. “Just debridement, I think.”

But as the afternoon wore on, and they didn’t bring him back, she started casting worried glances toward his bed. 

“They might’ve put him somewhere else,” Thomas pointed out, on one such occasion. 

“You’re right,” she said. “Tent C is Men’s Surgical—perhaps he’s in there.”

Thomas was starting to wonder a bit too, and when tea-time came around and everything seemed under control, he decided to go and have a look in Tent C.

Tent C was much worse than theirs. It held about the same number of patients, but they were much more serious cases—gut wounds, amputations, cases that clearly _should_ have been amputated days ago. There were three nurses on duty, but Thomas quickly rejected the notion of asking any of them for help finding Preston—one was changing a soiled bed, another attempting a dressing change on an abdominal case, and the other rushing about giving morphine injections to the ones who were groaning the loudest. 

If Preston was in here, they’d been far too late with the dressing change, that was clear. Thomas wished, a bit, that he had left well enough alone, but now that he was here, he supposed he ought to check, and began walking down the rows of beds, looking at each face. 

Halfway down the second row, he stopped short. “Theo?”

He raised his head slightly. His face was haggard, his breathing labored. “T’mas. Wha’re you….”

“Caught a packet,” Thomas said, squeezing in between Theo’s bed and the next, and kneeling down. “Looks like you did, too.” 

“Yeah,” said Theo. “Got my Blighty one.”

The blanket was pulled up to his chest, but there was blood seeping through, on his stomach. “I’ll say,” Thomas said. 

“Yours?” Theo asked.

“Just a shoulder. Nothing to worry about.” 

“Good.” Theo panted, a bit. 

“Do you need some pain medicine?” Thomas asked. “I’ll get some.”

“Not yet,” Theo said. “This,” pant. “’s the sixteenth, yeah?”

Thomas thought he meant the date, for a second, but then remembered Nurse Fortescue telling him, when he’d been doing tally-cards, that this was the Sixteenth General Hospital. “Yeah. The Sixteenth.”

Theo nodded. “Same one.” A few more labored breaths. “Where Syl….”

“Yeah?” Thomas said. 

“Yeah. You gotta…his grave. The lip rouge.”

“All right,” Thomas said.

“In my pack. Been carrying it around. All year. Take it to him, yeah?”

Theo’s pack wasn’t here, of course. None of the PBI had their packs by the time they got to the Dressing Station, let alone a Base hospital. “Sure,” Thomas said. 

“Good. I’m, uh….” Whatever he’d been about to say was lost. “You’re all right, though?”

“I’m fine.”

“I’ll.” He spent a moment catching his breath. “I’ll tell Peter, yeah?”

Thomas nodded, tears stinging his eyes. “Yeah. Tell him.” He swallowed hard. “I love him, and I’m all right.” He had quite a few doubts about the afterlife, but at the moment, he _envied_ Theo, just for the chance that he might be going somewhere Peter was. 

“Right. I’ll tell ‘im. And you’ll…Syl.”

“I promise,” Thomas said, wondering how the hell he was going to keep it. 

Theo closed his eyes then, and Thomas listened to his ragged breathing. After a while, the nurse with the morphine paused by the bed. “Is he a friend of yours?” she asked, gently.

“Yeah,” Thomas said, wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his good arm. “The last one I had left, from before the war.”

A hand squeezed his shoulder. “It won’t be long now.”

“I know,” Thomas said. 

“Yes,” the nurse said. “I suppose you do.” She circled round to the other side of the bed and knelt down, and Thomas saw that it was Sister Brown. “This will make it easier for him,” she said, lifting a needle from the tray that she carried. “I expect you know that, too.”

“Yes,” Thomas said. “He’s ready. He—had some things he wanted to say, but he’s said ‘em.”

Sister Brown swabbed the crook of Theo’s elbow with alcohol, meticulously, even though there was no reason on earth to bother, then slipped the needle in and pressed the plunger. “I stay with them, when I can,” she said. “But there’s so many.”

“I’ll stay with him.”

She nodded. “You know not to look under the blanket.”

It wasn’t really a question, but Thomas whispered, “Yes.”

It took Theo hours to die. Thomas stayed next to him the whole time, his legs growing numb under him, his shoulder throbbing. Sister Brown must have scrupled to give him enough to make quick work of it, but it did its job. His breathing evened out, after the injection, and he didn’t wake, or show any signs of pain. 

Thomas doubted he was hearing anything, but talked to him anyway. Told him about his mates at the 47th, how they had looked after him when he was wounded, and then about Kew Gardens, and his date with Peter. “Peter said…in one of his letters, he said that it wasn’t so bad, being in the war, you just missed people. He was right. I haven’t had a bad time of it, really—I’ve had a right good war, compared to some, and now they tell me I’m going home, but…there’s nobody _there_ , Theo. There’s nobody left.”

Theo didn’t say anything, of course. 

“Sorry,” Thomas said. “You’re the one dying; I ought to be comforting you. I thought I was dying, for a bit, back at the 47th—did I tell you? I wasn’t, it was—I misunderstood some things. But I had Peter’s lighter, and I was looking at his picture, and I had Rawlins read me the last letter I had from him, and….it would be just a lot _easier_ , if I had.” He mopped his eyes again. “Don’t tell Peter that,” he added, with a nervous laugh. “I’ll be all right. I’ll figure something out.”

Casting about for something more cheerful to talk about—just in case Theo _was_ hearing any of this—he said, “You’ll like this. We have a cat, at our billet. Ginger tom. He’s still just a kitten, really, but he’s going to be huge, the way everyone keeps feeding him….”

Gradually, over the hours, Theo’s breathing just slower and slower, the space between one breath and the next longer and longer, until finally, the next breath never came. 

Thomas put his head down on Theo’s chest, and wept. For Theo, for Peter, for Syl, for all of them. 

When he finally sat up, his head was throbbing almost as much as his shoulder. He sat there for a few moments, sniffling and trying to sort out what he was meant to do next, until Sister Brown arrived. She gave him a handkerchief, a cup of tea, and a couple of morphine tablets. “I’ll lay him out,” she said. “Drink that up, and then go back to your ward and have a sleep. It won’t fix everything, but it’ll help.”

Thomas nodded, and sipped at the tea. It was tooth-achingly sweet, and not very hot. “I actually came here,” he said distantly, “to look for Preston. Nurse Fortescue said this was the surgical ward.”

“Ah,” said Sister Brown. “That is, I’m sure you see, a euphemism.”

“I gathered.”

“Surgical _recovery_ is tent F, but I expect Preston will have been returned to E by now.” She paused. “They did not have to amputate, fortunately.”

“That’s good,” Thomas said vaguely. “He didn’t have his pack with him, did he? Not Preston,” he added, gesturing toward Theo.

“No,” Sister Brown said.

“Didn’t think so. There was something I promised him I’d do, but…I’ll figure it out.” He tossed back the morphine tablets and chased them with a gulp of tea. Sister Brown helped him to his feet. “Thank you.”

Tent E was dark and quiet when Thomas got back. Nurse Fortescue had gone off duty ages ago; some other nurse sat at the desk, writing by a shaded candle. Thomas gave her a vague wave as he trudged to his bed; after a brief glance to confirm that Preston was back, and had both his legs, he fell onto the bed, and asleep. 

He woke to a clatter of crockery, and rain pattering on the canvas roof of the tent. Nurse Fortescue was gathering up breakfast dishes from the bed-cases—with some help from the mobile patients—but when he sat up, pushed the cart over his way. “Good morning, sleepyhead!” 

“Morning,” Thomas said vaguely. 

Reaching down to the lower shelf of the cart, she said, “I saved you some tea and toast, but I’m afraid it’s gone cold.”

“That’s all right,” he said, taking the plate and teacup. He’d missed dinner last night, and felt more nauseous than hungry, but supposed he’d better eat. “Thanks.”

“Where’d you disappear to yesterday?” she asked. 

“Ran into an old friend,” he said. 

“Oh, that’s nice!”

He almost wanted to preserve her obnoxious good cheer, but he couldn’t possibly keep up the pretense for long, and so said, “He was dying, so I stayed with him.”

Her face fell. “Oh.” She busied herself for a moment with adding Preston’s dishes to the cart. “I’m very sorry to hear that. You must let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

“Thanks.” He was munching toast and contemplating how absurd the empty phrases of condolence were, in the circumstances, when something occurred to him. “As a matter of fact, he had a last request I could use a bit of help with.”

“Of course. What was it?”

“First, I need to find the grave of someone who died here last year. There must be some place to look up where it is.”

“The records room, I should think,” she said, with a nod. “I can ask when I go in to lunch. What was his name?”

“Syl—Sylvester—Tanner. And then I need some lip rouge. Or silk stockings would do, I suppose.”

Nurse Fortescue gave him a look of polite bafflement.

Right, a request like that called for some sort of explanation. Perhaps it was an inside joke, between Theo and Syl? Or he could explain about the amateur theatricals, or—fuck it. “He liked things like that, Syl. Bit of a funny one, but he was all right. Theo wanted to leave him some, at his grave.” 

Nurse Fortescue recovered quickly enough, considering. “Oh. Well, stockings shouldn’t be too difficult, but we’re not allowed to wear make-up. Not even off-duty, strictly speaking. Still, someone might have something. I’ll ask around.”

Thomas nodded. “Thanks. I don’t mind paying for it, but I’m not sure where to look.”

“The shops around here are short of everything,” she said. “Not much room on the trains for nonessentials, I expect. Leave it to me.”

Taking her at her word, Thomas focused himself on work for the rest of the day—and added the fact that no work was actually _expected_ of him to the long list of things he was carefully not thinking about. Having something to do helped keep his mind off everything else on the list, and it was easy enough to keep moving as long as he didn’t let himself remember that he had any choice in the matter. 

The day followed the pattern of the previous ones—meals, dressing changes, a Blighty convoy, an incoming convoy. Sister Brown, coming to oversee the departures and arrivals, was just as unpleasant as she’d been on previous visits to the ward; Thomas wondered idly if she had a twin. 

The next day after lunch, Nurse Fortescue surreptitiously passed him a small brown-paper-wrapped parcel, under cover of changing his dressing. “I couldn’t _quite_ get what you wanted,” she explained, “but Angela had some face powder she didn’t mind giving up. She wrote away for it, and they sent the wrong shade. I thought your friend might like it. And she gave me a leaflet, for the shop she ordered it from. It’s in Paris. We could write away for some lip rouge, but I don’t know how long it’ll take to come—Angela waited _weeks_ for the face powder.”

“I reckon it’ll do well enough,” Thomas said, when she paused for breath. It wasn’t as though Syl was in a position to be choosy. Or even actually care.

“Good. It _is_ war-time, after all. And there are quite a lot of wildflowers blooming, once you get away from the buildings, so we can gather a bouquet on our way to the cemetery—I’ve got a bit of ribbon for it.”

Thomas had not entirely realized that Nurse Fortescue was planning to accompany him on the visit to Syl’s grave, but decided not to argue about it—it wasn’t as though Thomas had anything particularly personal to say to him. “All right.”

“Angela’s coming to keep an eye on the ward, after the Blighty convoy leaves, so we can go then. Lucky the weather’s cleared up.”

It was also lucky that Thomas’s name wasn’t on the list for that day’s convoy. Angela—Nurse Kincaid to him—turned out to be a tall, serious-faced girl with spectacles; what she was doing ordering illicit cosmetics from Parisian shops, Thomas had no idea, but didn’t ask.

The cemetery was on the other side of the hospital grounds, so it was a bit of a walk to get to it. The casino-turned-hospital stood on a bluff overlooking the Channel; it was only as they walked along the bluff that Thomas realized the sound he’d been assuming for days was distant artillery-fire, was in fact the waves crashing against the rocks below. 

As they walked, Nurse Fortescue alternated chattering and flower-gathering. “Had you ever been to the Continent, before the war?” she asked, giving him a fistful of Queen Anne’s Lace.

“No,” Thomas said. Unless being conceived there counted. 

“Me neither. I was meant to go a couple of years ago, with Great-Aunt Felicity, to see the Old Masters—she’s an artist, you see—but then she broke her leg and the whole thing was cancelled. A terrible disappointment. She fell off her horse, hunting. Was your friend a _female impersonator_?”

A bit startled by the change in subject, Thomas said, “No,” reflexively. Then, “Well, sort of, I suppose. He was taking it up, like, when the war started. Didn’t have all the kit. What do _you_ know about things like that?”

“Angela thought he must be, to want that sort of stuff,” she said, matter-of-factly. “She’s ever so sophisticated. Her father’s an _impresario_.” 

“I see.” 

“He only does legitimate theater now, she says, but when he was just starting out he handled all sorts.”

Including drag acts? Thomas decided not to ask. 

When they reached the top of a little rise, the cemetery came into view—a massive field of wooden crosses. Thomas looked over his shoulder at the hospital’s main building; the cemetery faced one of its short sides, but still, dozens of windows looked out over it. He wondered what they’d do, when the war ended—if it ever did—and it became a casino again. No holiday-maker would want a view like that. Put up a wall? Move all the graves? 

Perhaps a screen of trees would suit the purpose. 

Nurse Fortescue had written down which row they wanted, and which grave within the row. She counted them off solemnly, and then they stood in front of the marker. 

“Pvt. S. Tanner,” it said, and gave his regiment. The markers on either side were less than three inches away; Thomas carefully didn’t think about how that meant that, when they had done the burials, they’d dug one long trench, and laid the bodies along it. They’d likely piled them on top of one another. There was a good chance this wasn’t even where Syl was, precisely. 

Nurse Fortescue carefully laid her ribbon-wrapped bouquet at the foot of the cross. “I’ll give you some privacy,” she said, and went off to pick some more flowers, and lay them on other graves.

“Right,” Thomas said, once she’d gone. He’d never had much to say to Syl when he was alive; he wasn’t sure what he was doing here now. Except that he’d promised Theo. 

Say that, then. “Theo’s been killed. I suppose you know that already, if you’re able to know anything. He’s been carrying around your lip rouge for over a year. The last thing he did in this world was ask me to make sure you got it, but he lost track of it, at the end. It was a big push; most of them had to leave their packs and blankets and things behind, when they started the advance. You probably know how that is. Might turn up, eventually. Anyway, some of the girls here—nurses—came up with this for you instead.” 

He undid the little parcel. “This is, uh, face powder, apparently. Don’t know if you ever tried that. And stockings. Theo had to use your ones—the ones you sent for—to filter water, so these are different ones, but I suppose they’re just as good.” He tucked them under the flowers, and leaned the tin of powder against the stems. “So those are from Theo, and the flowers are from Nurse Fortescue. She helped with the other things, too. You’d probably like her.” He lit two cigarettes, and put one on top of the powder tin. “And that’s from me and Peter. Peter’s dead, too, I suppose you know.”

He paused to wipe his eyes. “I mean, I don’t really suppose that. I don’t actually think you’re all sitting in the Criterion bar of the Great Beyond. But if you are, have a drink for me. And I hope somebody up there—down there—finds a frock for you that actually fits. That thing you had on at the nightclub was God-awful.” He laughed hollowly. “Sorry, but it was.”

He smoked for a bit. “One day, I suppose, that pile up there will be a casino again. You should haunt the fuck out of it. In a fabulous frock and your tin hat. That’d show ‘em.” 

Show who, what, Thomas wasn’t sure, but it seemed a decent enough note to end on. He stubbed out his cigarette, checked to make sure that Syl’s wasn’t about to set anything on fire, and went off to meet Nurse Fortescue. 

#

_8 July, 1916_

_Dear Thomas,_

_We received your field post card. Considering all the news coming in from France, we were glad to have something from you, but are hoping for a letter soon, to tell us how you are getting on, and if your wound was serious. Everyone here is thinking about you and hoping that you are all right._

_Mr. Matthew is well. Lady Mary has had a field postcard and a letter from him. He says that his company was in reserve at the beginning of the offensive, and so did not come off too badly. William has not been called up yet, which is a relief in the circumstances._

_Love,_

_Anna Smith_

_10 July, 1916_

_Dear Thomas,_

_I hope this finds you well, and that the wound mentioned in your field postcard is not too serious. I suppose that since you have been sent to base, it may take some time for your post to catch up with you. Please write if there is anything we can send which would make you more comfortable as you recover._

_Best wishes,_

_Elsie Hughes_

_14 July, 1916_

_Dear Thomas,_

_How are you getting on? We’ve had no news from you since the field postcard saying that you were wounded, and we’re all worried—even Mr. Carson!_

_Lady Sybil has finished her nursing training, and begun work in our hospital. She learned about the Chain of Evacuation in her training, and explained that you have probably been moved several times since being wounded, which may make it difficult for letters to reach you. She also said that your being sent “to Base” likely meant that your wound was serious enough to require lengthy convalescence, but that is it not necessarily a dangerous one. So I am praying that it was not. _

_If you are not well enough to write a letter, perhaps you could send another field postcard. That way we will know if you are getting our letters. (Mrs. Hughes and I have each sent one.)_

_I don’t know if you’re in a state to be interested in our news here, but a few things have happened. First, Mr. Bates’s mother has passed. As you know, she had been ill for some time, so while it is a sad loss, it is not an unexpected one. The silver lining is that she turned out to have had more substantial savings than Mr. Bates ever expected. Mrs. Bates has suggested that she is now willing to release him, in return for a settlement, and so he has proposed. (I said yes.) If it happens, we will both continue working for a time, and live in one of the cottages on the estate. (Lord and Lady Grantham have agreed to this plan. In fact, he asked Lord Grantham before he asked me! I suppose it was sensible of him, if not romantic.)_

_Once I know where you have ended up, I’ll send a parcel, so please let me know if there is anything in particular that you need._

_Love,_

_Anna Smith_

_July 18, 1916_

_Dear Thomas,_

_I must say, I’m beginning to get a little worried not to have heard from you. The last news we had from you was a field postcard saying that you had been wounded. Lady Sybil, who you may know has begun working at the village hospital, went so far as to ask Dr. Clarkson if he could find out any news of you, but unfortunately he did not take very well to being asked. I suppose with such a great many soldiers having been wounded, he has many more urgent matters to attend to._

_If you are having a difficult time, please don’t trouble yourself writing a long letter, but a brief note or even another field postcard would do much to set my mind at ease—and Anna’s, and everyone else’s._

_Wishing you an easy recovery,_

_Elsie Hughes_

Thomas had been at the Base Hospital for over two weeks when his letters caught up with him. He had all but forgotten that he’d sent off a field postcard, while he was still at the 47th—Rawlins had been asking if he could take down a letter to anyone, and Thomas had finally told him he could fill out the postcard for him, more so that he’d stop asking than anything else. He certainly hadn’t expected them to _worry_.

He supposed he ought to write back and explain, but he really didn’t want to. He’d either have to pretend that he expected to go back to the 47th, which would be a difficult lie to keep up, or else admit that he was likely to be discharged—in which case they were sure to ask what he planned to do next, and he didn’t want to think about it. 

So he got another field postcard, marked it “quite well” and “I have received your letter,” and sent it off. They’d likely think it meant he wasn’t well enough to write, but at least it would be a few days before any reply would reach him. He could say, when he did finally get around to writing, that a letter would have been held up for censoring—which was probably true.

The hospital _was_ getting less busy, though. Fighting continued in the Somme sector, supplying a steady stream of new casualties, but nothing like the harvest of that first, hideous day. Gradually, the hospital ships caught up with the backlog of cases waiting to be ferried across to England, and one by one, the ward-tents disappeared from the lawn, until the only ones left were E—Thomas’s ward—and B, another ward for light cases. 

Few patients stayed in Tent E for more than two or three days now. After that time, they were either sent on to England, or a place was found for them in a permanent ward—except for Thomas. He stayed where he was, and a time or two, he wondered if they’d forgotten that he was not, in fact, posted there. 

He didn’t mind if they had. The work was light, food and cigarettes plentiful, and Nurse Fortescue’s company unobjectionable—she seemed to have made up her mind that they were friends, and Thomas didn’t argue about it. She brought him all the hospital gossip and sometimes cake. 

About a week into his stay, he had his shoulder x-rayed, and was issued a sling and orders not to move his shoulder. He found the sling to be of little practical use—he was more than capable of keeping his shoulder still on his own, and found that actually putting his arm in the sling cause a bit of a strain on the wound—but it saved him a great many explanations of why he could only carry things in his right hand. It also served him well when a General on a cheering-up-the-troops visit happened to pass him from the right, and Thomas had to salute him with the wrong hand—though on that occasion, Thomas did stuff his bad arm into the sling, just to avoid any misunderstanding. 

A day or two after the letters from Downton, Thomas got one from Rawlins, reading,

_Barrow,_

_Hope you’re enjoying your holiday! Are you back in Blighty yet? All of us are getting along well enough. Things have finally quieted down on our bit of Front, enough that we’re back to working normal shifts._

_Everyone misses you at the barn, but especially Mittens—he wanders about like a lost soul, mewing piteously. Once I sat in your chair, and he came racing across the rafters like he always does, only to turn a somersault midair and run away when he realized I wasn’t you. He’s gotten a lot bigger—I’ve been too busy lately for photography, but if you’re away much longer, I’ll take a new one of him to send to you._

_The Wardmaster also asked after you. He said he reckons you must be all right, because he’d be notified if you were invalided out or Died of Wounds, but he wondered how you were getting on._

_I’m lance-corporal of our section at the moment, but I’m finding it a bit of a headache. The sooner you come back, and I can step down, the better! (I’ll be glad to see you, too, of course.)_

_Your friend,_

_Rawlins_

Thomas wondered, reading it, if Rawlins had heard something—perhaps from the Wardmaster?—about his coming back. It was unlikely, he told himself firmly. Probably, he was just pretending, as they all had before Thomas had left. 

Still, he found this letter less impossible to answer than the ones from Downton, and wrote back,

_Rawlins,_

_You can tell the Wardmaster—and anyone else who’s wondering—that I’m getting on all right. I’m still in France, at a Base Hospital. Most of the other light cases from 1 July have been sent on to England by now, but not me. I have been helping the nurse on our ward, which I expect is why they are keeping me around._

_They were very shorthanded when I first got here—only one VAD to look after a large marquee-tent filled to capacity; the Ward-Sister nominally in charge had two other wards of more serious cases and was very seldom seen by us! Things have started to ease up a bit now, which is not without its down-side, as Sister disapproves of both VADs and nursing orderlies. She is pleasant enough when she sees me in my capacity as patient, but heaven forbid I attempt anything more complicated than handing out tea and cigarettes. She doesn’t even like the way I fill out tally-cards, which you know is one of my best things._

_No-one’s said anything about where I’m going from here, or when. I suppose that’s all right; I feel as though the more I’ve recovered by the time anyone stops to consider my fate, the likelier it is I’ll be sent ~~home~~ to the 47th. If you happen to run into the Wardmaster again, you might mention that I’m still hoping to be pronounced fit for active service—though I suppose even if I am, it’ll mean a spell in a convalescent camp, now I’m back at Base. _

_~~I wish I could have~~ It’s too bad I couldn’t convalesce back in the barn, but I suppose What’s-his-name would have jumped on my bad shoulder and given me a hemorrhage or something. You can tell him from me that it’s ungrateful of him to snub the rest of you, when you’re the ones that keep stuffing him so full of sardines and condensed milk that he’s a hazard to shipping. _

_Your Friend,_

_Barrow_

The following days brought a flurry of letters from Downton—not just from Mrs. Hughes and Anna this time, but also ones from Bates, William, and Daisy, and even a brief note from her ladyship, conveying her best wishes for his recovery.

He stuffed the letters into his rucksack, guiltily aware that Carson would probably have not just palpitations, but an actual heart attack, if he knew Thomas was choosing deliberately to ignore correspondence from one of the family. In fact, Thomas could probably have managed to answer that one, but it didn’t seem right to send a reply to her ladyship when he wasn’t writing back to anyone who actually knew him. 

#

“Do you suppose,” Jessop said, once Tully had related to him the letter Rawlins had shown him, “that we might actually get him back? Maybe the wound isn’t as bad as it looked.”

“Maybe,” said Tully. He doubted it; he doubted that even Barrow believed it. “But if I had to lay odds on it, I’d wager they were too busy to take a good fucking look at it when he got there, and by now he’s got them halfway to forgetting he’s a fucking patient.” 

“That does sound summat like him,” Jessop admitted. 

“God knows why he wants to come back to this fucking shithole,” Tully added, pouring himself another drink. He did know, really, and it was enough to make you fucking cry, if you thought about it. What kind of life was it, if the place that felt like home to you was a Dressing Station on the doorstep of hell? He tossed back the drink and poured another. “He tried that one about convalescing in the barn before he left, too.”

“He’s a good lad,” Jessop said.

“I know.” He shook his head. “Who do we know at the Sixteenth General?”

“What are you going to do?” Jessop asked.

Tully wished he could say _I’m going to tell them to send him back to us_. But he couldn’t; this was a fucking war, and you couldn’t let half-crippled lads hang about just because they wanted to. “Get that shoulder looked at,” he answered. “Find out if he’s got any chance of coming back to active service. If not, we’re not doing him any fucking favors pretending otherwise.”

#

_Barrow_ ,

_Glad to hear you’re well, son. I’ll pull a couple of strings to get some answers, but like I said before you left, I’d be surprised if that wasn’t a Blighty one. Maybe Home Service, if you’re lucky._

_~~I know it’s not~~ _

_~~I’d bring you~~ _

_Sorry._

_WT_

Thomas’s hands shook as he lit a cigarette. He shouldn’t have said anything. He’d known that when he’d written to Rawlins. Nothing good ever came of asking for what you wanted. 

“Bad news?” Nurse Fortescue asked. She’d been handing out the post to everyone in the tent, but she must have finished now, because she sat down on the bed opposite his—empty now. 

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Just, uh…it’s nothing.”

“Is it a…?” She tilted her head to one side and gave him a significant look.

Thomas honestly had no idea what she was asking. 

“A _Dear John_ ,” she whispered.

“No,” he said, with a roll of his eyes. Honestly. Girls. 

Unfortunately, the Wardmaster’s strings reached as far as the Channel coast, and the next day, Thomas was summoned to the x-ray hut, and then to a consulting room in the former casino building, where a nursing sister briskly ordered him to strip to the waist and “Wait for Doctor.”

The MO—a captain—came in about a quarter of an hour later, and briefly inspected the wound. “It’s healing nicely,” he noted. 

“Yes, sir?” Maybe, he thought, just maybe the Wardmaster had gotten it wrong.

“But it’s certainly past time for you to be sent back to England,” he added, before taking Thomas’s arm and pushing and pulling it as far as it would go in various directions—which wasn’t very far at all.

Fuck. “I’m not in any particular hurry, sir.” 

“I’ll have you sent to the orthopedic center in London,” the MO continued, not seeming to have heard. He talked a bit about nerves and ligaments and something called the “acromioclavicular joint,” whatever that was. “It’s a fairly complicated injury, but the rehabilitation specialists will get you sorted out.”

That sounded a bit more hopeful than Thomas had thought. “Rehabilitation, sir? You mean it _will_ get better?”

“Well,” the MO said slowly, “they’ll be able to work on increasing the range of motion, and regaining strength. You’ll certainly see some improvement.”

Fuck. “I see, sir.” He took a deep breath. Asking couldn’t really make things any worse now. “I was hoping to be returned to active service.”

“That does you credit,” the officer said. “But I don’t think it’ll be necessary.” He talked a bit about how shoulder wounds varied in complexity, and how a wound to the fleshy part of the shoulder would heal much more quickly and completely than one that involved the joint itself. “The specialists will make the final diagnosis, but I’d say you’ve done your bit.”

“Thank you, sir,” Thomas said, numbly. “What about Home Service? Do you suppose I’ve any chance of being passed fit for that?”

“Ah, well—you can put your things back on—I wouldn’t say it’s _likely_. You’re RAMC?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I think they want you to be able to carry a stretcher. But you’d have to speak to the orthopedic center staff about that—they’ll have more of an idea.” As Thomas put his uniform back on, the MO started writing out orders. “I think that today’s Blighty convoy is full, but you should get on tomorrow’s, or if not, the next day’s. And I’ll put in your record that I recommend that you be transferred on as quickly as can be managed, but there may be some delays—you know the Army.”

“Yes, sir.”

When Thomas returned to the tent and told Nurse Fortescue the news, she looked almost as dismayed as he felt. “Oh,” she said. “Well, that’s…splendid, of course, that you’re going home.”

He shrugged his good shoulder. “I suppose.” 

“You must write and let me know how you’re getting on.”

“All right.” There were quite a few letters he ought to write, now he had something definite to put in them. 

He spent much of the next day writing them—there were few ward chores to pitch in on, as the ward was half-empty now—and posted the ones to Rawlins and the Wardmaster before he left. 

The rest, he might as well wait and post from England. 

Blighty convoys from this hospital started out by rail, thanks to the steepness of the coast, and it wasn’t until it was almost time to leave that Thomas considered the obvious fact that crossing the English Channel would necessitate a transfer to a hospital ship. 

It wasn’t that he was worried about it sinking—in a strange and terrible way, he almost wished it would. But it would be so very hard not to think about Peter. There’d be nowhere to look, that he wouldn’t wonder if what he was seeing was one of the last things that Peter had seen. 

The ship, for all he knew, might even pass over the very place where whatever was left of him lay. 

Fortunately, Sister Brown turned up with the Blighty list as Nurse Fortescue was handing out morphine tablets to the more seriously-injured of the passengers. Sister Brown always managed to find fault with _something_ at this time, and it was easy enough for Thomas to swipe a couple of tablets while they were both otherwise occupied. 

Once she called his name, he knocked them back, and then the only thing he had to worry about was keeping hold of his rucksack and not falling over as he lined up to get into the railway carriage. 

At least, that was all he had to worry about until Nurse Fortescue, lined up with some of the other nurses to wave them off, broke ranks, dashed over, and kissed him. 

Even stone-cold sober, Thomas might have been too startled to fend her off. As it was, he barely registered what was happening before Sister Brown started shouting, and a Sergeant shoved him up the carriage steps, to a chorus of catcalls and congratulations from the other passengers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content notes:  
> Character death: It's Theo.  
> Transphobic vocabulary: Someone who means well asks Thomas if Syl was a "female impersonator." At the time, that term would more correctly apply to a drag performer, but the other character knows even less about trans identities than Thomas does, and he does not attempt to make this distinction. 
> 
> Historical Note: 
> 
> The medical practice in this chapter is pretty shocking, so it’s important to understand how thoroughly overwhelmed the medical system was, by the casualties from the Somme. July 1, 1916, was the single bloodiest day of the war so far, and while the doctors, nurses, and orderlies of the RAMC knew perfectly well that shipping wounded men long distances without medical attention was likely to result in life-threatening complications in a considerable proportion of cases, they literally did not have the personnel or the facilities to do anything else—the best chance the men had was to be moved rearward until they got somewhere that had the space and the personnel to attend to them. 
> 
> It was sadly true that morphine and cigarettes were the treatments most commonly provided on these journeys. It was beginning to be understood at the time that morphine was both dangerous and habit-forming, but it was the most effective thing they had for controlling the men’s pain and keeping them quiet while they were transported. (Keeping them quiet was important because they could worsen their injuries by moving around too much, as well as cause logistical disruptions that would delay treatment for the whole group.) Cigarettes were distributed as a comfort measure—the dangers of smoking were largely unknown at that point, even to medical science, and most men smoked. Cigarettes were much easier to store, transport, and distribute than other comfort items, like food or clean clothing, and having nurses hand them out gave the men a sense that they were being cared for. 
> 
> In addition to the converted cattle-cars that Thomas rides in, there _were_ fully-equipped hospital cars, with medical personnel and equipment. However, there weren’t nearly enough of them, so they were reserved for the most serious cases.


	19. Interlude: The Peter Letters, Part 3

_August, 1916_

_I haven’t written for a while, because something rather dreadful has happened. It looks now as though everything is going to be all right, so please don’t worry. It’s only that I’ve lost my left arm. _

_We were doing an operation, you see, on a new patient who was chock-full of shrapnel, and I’m afraid I did something rather stupid, and cut myself on a bit of it. It wasn’t very bad at first, but the wound was absolutely filthy—the patient’s wound, I mean—and my cut was infected. It was touch and go for a while—Capt. K. amputated three separate times, first my hand, then just below the elbow, and finally at the shoulder. Each time, he’d missed a bit of the infection, you see, so it kept spreading. The last one finally worked—and a good thing, since there was nothing further he could cut off._

_That was two weeks ago, and the wound is a lovely healing pink, so I am quite out of the woods, and getting on with adjusting to having only one hand. (Capt. K. has assured me that I’ll be staying right here—the German MO in charge of us is rather sympathetic about the whole thing, and in addition our MO’s have talked up my medical skills, saying that there are any number of invaluable things I can do to make up for not being able to do much of the routine work. It helps that I am, in fact, fairly good at spotting when a patient begins taking a turn for the worse—there has been a time or two when I was able to alert the doctors to a problem before it had got so serious there was nothing they could do.)_

_I’m still fairly tired, though, so I will go and rest—more later._


	20. Chapter 16: August-November, 1916

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas returns to England.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Be sure to check out the Interlude before this chapter!

_1 August, 1916_

_Dear Lady Grantham,_

_It is very kind of you to think of me, and I’m sorry to have caused you worry. My wound was not a terribly serious one. That is, a lengthy convalescence is expected, but I am in no danger. At present, I am still in France, but I expect to be sent to England within the next few days._

_Sincerely,_

_Corporal T. Barrow, RAMC_

_1 August, 1916_

_Dear Mrs. Hughes,_

_I’m sorry to have worried everyone about my wound—it’s only in my shoulder. It wasn’t a very dangerous one to begin with, and at this point, the only thing to worry about is how much use I’ll have of the arm, once it’s all said and done._

_Lady Sybil is entirely correct about my being moved several times. In addition to it taking a while for your letters to catch up to me, when you’ve got a wound that isn’t very serious, they take their time shuffling you about from pillar to post, and give you a lot of morphine to keep you quiet while they’re doing it. So everything was a bit hazy for a while, and between one thing and another, I didn’t realize that you would be waiting for news._

_I’m still in France at the moment, but they expect to get me on a ship to England within the next day or two. Space permitting, I will then be at an orthopedic hospital in London. (That’s bone-and-joint specialists.) I’m not sure how long they will keep me there, but I am hoping for Home Service after that. (Unless, of course, we win the war while I’m still recuperating!)_

_I was wounded in the big offensive that’s been in the papers—on the very first morning of it, in fact. My section was posted at the Front to collect wounded; I brought two in, and then was shot on the way to the third one. We were well behind the advance, so I can only guess that a stray bullet found its way through a gap in the line. Considering what a terrible morning it was, I was lucky—my mates brought me in right away, and made sure I was well looked after. There were so many wounded that some had to wait days before they got any sort of care at all, in which time even a minor wound can develop complications._

_It will take me some time to reply to everyone’s letters, so perhaps you could share this one with the others._

_Thomas_

_P.S.: In England now; I ended up where they expected—the Royal Orthopedic Hospital, Shepherd’s Bush._

_1 August, 1916_

_Dear Anna,_

_Best wishes on your engagement—if you’re sure it’s what you want—and congratulations to Mr. Bates. A cottage on the estate sounds nice, and it certainly is very practical of Mr. Bates to have considered your career before proposing._

_I wrote the details of my wound, etc., to Mrs. Hughes, so I won’t repeat it all, except to say that I’m on my way back to England, and in no danger. Might be crippled for life, but I expect there’s thousands of men would take that in a heartbeat if they could be on their way to England and in no danger. I had it pretty good where I was, and would just as soon have stayed, but we can’t always get what we want in life, can we?_

_I’ll write again once I’ve got settled in the new hospital in England._

_Thomas_

After reading her letter from Thomas, Anna immediately went to Mrs. Hughes’s sitting room to find out what her one had said. Mrs. Hughes handed Anna hers to read, but Anna was unable to return the favor—she and John couldn’t announce their engagement until everything was fully settled with the first Mrs. Bates. 

Instead, she said, after scanning the first paragraph of Mrs. Hughes’s letter, “Not sure how much use he’ll have of it—in mine, he said he might be crippled for life. Do you suppose he’s being dramatic?”

“Seeing as it’s Thomas, it could go either way,” Mrs. Hughes said. “He says they’re sending him to a specialist; perhaps they don’t know yet how well it’ll heal.”

That did seem likely, now she mentioned it. “At least now we know he isn’t dying,” she said. “Though he could have said so a bit sooner.” Honestly, if it turned out that it had been barely a scratch, and he’d left them waiting a month for news, he’d _wish_ it had been more serious.

“I expect things were a bit difficult,” Mrs. Hughes pointed out, “even with a wound that wasn’t dangerous.”

#

The Royal Orthopedic Hospital was, in Thomas’s estimation, possibly the dullest place in the world. For the first weeks that he was there, his only regular obligation was to report each morning for “Gymnastic Exercises,” a half-hour program of exceedingly mild calisthenics. These were supposedly therapeutic in nature, but since his left arm was still immobilized, and there wasn’t anything wrong with the rest of him, there didn’t seem to be much point—except, perhaps, to remind them that they were still in the Army and could be made to do pointless things. 

The rest of the day was largely his own, although permission had to be obtained from a Ward-Sister to leave the hospital grounds. Mostly, he tried to help out with ward chores—but the nursing Sisters hoarded all properly medical work for themselves, and as he was far from being the only convalescent itching for something to do, competition for the “unskilled” work was fierce.

Matters improved a bit once one of the physiotherapists—as tired of nagging him about keeping his arm in the sling as he was of being nagged about it—instead strapped his upper arm to his side. He probably wasn’t meant to like it, but the advantage over the sling was that it left the lower part of his arm free, allowing him the use of his hand, while preventing him from accidentally moving his shoulder. Just being able to hold a cigarette in that hand and a teacup in the other was a pleasure, and he quickly progressed from there.

He’d been unable to avoid being issued a set of hospital blues—though he did manage to keep hold of his proper uniform, by hiding it in his rucksack—and once he’d got the hang of moving his left arm only from the elbow down, the first thing he did was tailor them into some approximation of a decent fit. As hospital blues were designed to fit everyone equally badly, once word got round, he had as much tailoring work as he could handle, and took payment in cash, food from home, or, in the neediest cases, juicy gossip. 

While his arm was immobilized, his physical therapy consisted mainly of having warm compresses, and occasionally galvanic current, applied to his shoulder. He wasn’t sure what any of that was meant to do, but it wasn’t particularly unpleasant, and they didn’t call him in for it above once a week—the physiotherapists gave most of their attention to the amputees—so he wasn’t too concerned about it. 

Once he was cleared for “movement therapy,” his sessions were no more frequent, but less pleasant. He still started off with the warm compresses, but after that the therapists would instruct him to move his arm as far as he could in various directions, then pull or push it just a little bit further. Sometimes, they attached it to a positively medieval-looking contraption for measuring the range of motion, and when he pointed out that he didn’t seem to be making much progress, showed him that he was now, for example, able to raise his arm by 8 degrees of a circle instead of 5. 

Improvement in some directions was better than others. Thomas learned that the joint the doctor back in France had referred to—the acromioclavicular—was the one which connected the collar-bone to the shoulder-blade. It mainly came into use when raising the arm out to the side, and so that was the movement that gave him the most trouble. There was also something about his shoulder-blade not moving as freely as it should have done, but that, they said, was largely a matter of muscle damage, and could be expected to continue to improve if he worked at it. 

The other piece of the problem was nerve damage, which one of the physiotherapists discovered more-or-less by accident, during a galvanic current treatment. Just below the entry wound, on the back of his shoulder, was a numb patch about the size of a pack of cigarettes. Thomas had noticed that the entry wound hurt a lot less than the exit wound did, but had supposed that was because it was smaller, or perhaps because he couldn’t see it. Apparently, some of the nerves supplying that area had been damaged, either by the bullet or by Captain Allenby’s efforts to stop his bleeding. 

The numbness didn’t bother him much—after all, he hadn’t noticed it—but the nerve damage also meant that there was a section of his shoulder muscle that, while it hadn’t been touched by the bullet, didn’t do anything. It turned out to be the bit that was responsible for reaching forward. There wasn’t much to be done about that, either, except to keep exercising the other muscles involved, and hope they managed to compensate. 

None of it was _too_ bad, really, and Thomas knew he had nothing to complain about compared to the men who had lost limbs—but he wasn’t going to be lifting a stretcher with it, or even a dinner tray, for that matter. 

He periodically sent guarded reports on the subject to Anna and Mrs. Hughes; to his surprise, neither of them asked the obvious question about what, precisely, he was going to do for a living once he was kicked out of the Army. 

In his darker moments, he almost wished Anna _would_ ask, so that he could reply that he’d heard valeting was a good job for a cripple. But she didn’t, so Thomas didn’t say it, and mostly tried not to think about the problem.

That worked up until the day, about three months after he’d come to the hospital, he was called in to meet with the Discharge Planning Officer, a white-haired gentleman in spectacles.

“Corporal Barrow?” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

“According to your medical reports, you’ve made most of the progress you’re likely to make.”

Thomas nodded. One of the physiotherapists had said as much, at his last session, so while the news wasn’t welcome, it wasn’t exactly a surprise. 

“Are you still hoping for Home Service?”

“Yes, sir. That is, assuming there’s no chance of active duty.”

“I should say not. Wouldn’t you like a medical discharge?”

 _No, I bloody well would not_. “Not particularly, sir.”

“All right,” he said, and wrote something down. “Then let’s schedule you for a medical board review in…let’s say another two months. If you do manage to make a bit more improvement by then, there may be some chance of Home Service.”

He supposed that was the best he was likely to get. He’d work harder at his exercises, and in any case, it would give him more time before he had to figure anything out. “Thank you, sir.”

“And in the meantime, you can go on home leave,” the officer continued. 

_Fuck_. “Sir?”

“You can continue with your therapy exercises at home,” he explained. “The physios report that you’re quite diligent, so I’m sure you’ll have no trouble. And you’ll be home for Christmas—won’t that be nice?”

“Yes, sir. But….” _But I haven’t got a home, is the thing_.

“But?”

No, he couldn’t possibly say that. And even if he did, it was hardly the Discharge Planning Officer’s problem. He’d been earning a bit while he was here—though that would stop once he was on leave—so it wasn’t as though he’d go from here to begging on the street. “But I’m not sure precisely where I ought to go,” he said. That much was completely true. “Me mum and dad aren’t living, see. I’ll have to write a few people to sort out what’s best.”

“Of course. Why don’t we schedule your leave to begin next week—that will give you some time to make arrangements.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Once he was dismissed, Thomas went out into the courtyard and smoked an anxious cigarette. Who _could_ he write to? Once, the answer would have been obvious: Theo. But Theo was dead, and couldn’t help anyone. 

Rawlins and the Wardmaster would, he thought, help if they could, but he already knew they couldn’t.

That left….

No, he couldn’t possibly write to _Alice_ and ask if he could stay there for a couple of months. For one thing, he’d scarcely heard from her since he left for France—a letter or two and a Christmas card; that was it. And even if she’d let him, he didn’t think he could stand it—he couldn’t possibly avoid seeing “dad,” and the shop, and all the rest of it. Besides, her house couldn’t possibly be more than two up and two down; they’d be crawling up each other’s arses, and no mistake.

There was _one_ place he knew that had plenty of room. They wouldn’t, though. 

Would they?

No. He couldn’t even _ask_ ; he’d be making himself ridiculous. 

On the other hand, every time Anna or Mrs. Hughes wrote, they asked if there was anything he needed. They meant cigarettes, or tea, or socks, not a roof over his head. Even if they wanted to help, Carson would never allow it. 

What if they could maneuver around him? Anna could ask one of the young ladies…no, they couldn’t grant permission for something like that. Anna could talk to Bates, and Bates to his lordship—but considering that the last thing of any note that he’d done in the house was tell his lordship he was an idiot, he’d be pushing his luck even asking for a decent reference from that quarter. 

But after thinking about it for the rest of the day, and well into a sleepless night, he couldn’t come up with any better ideas. Sneaking into the dayroom—where he wasn’t supposed to be, given it was the middle of the night—he tucked himself into a corner with a shaded lamp and wrote,

_2 November, 1916_

_Dear Anna,_

_Glad to hear you’re well. I’m not surprised that the soon-to-be-former Mrs. B. is dragging her heels—I expect she wants to take him for all he’s worth, now he’s a man of property._

_Funny you should ask if there’s anything you can do to help, because I’ve got a bit of a problem myself. I’ve finished my treatment here, but they want me to convalesce a bit more before reviewing my case for Home Service, so they’re giving me two months’ home leave._

That, he thought, should establish that, while the favor he was asking for was substantial, it wasn’t to be of indefinite duration. 

_As you know, I haven’t got a home, so that’s a bit difficult. The Army doesn’t pay you when you’re on leave, so if I’m not careful, I’ll run through all my savings._

He’d run through them even if he _was_ careful, but most people were more inclined to help you if you weren’t desperate. 

_You and Mrs. Hughes have both mentioned that Mr. Carson is having a difficult time with only one footman, especially knowing William could be called up at any time. While I can’t claim to be completely fit, I have been helping out here at the hospital, and I can manage quite a bit._

That might be enough to get the point across, but he didn’t have a lot of time to make his arrangements; a delay asking for clarification could be costly. He continued,

_So what I’m wondering is if it might be possible for me to come there for my leave, if I made myself useful. Perhaps at the village hospital, as well, if Mr. Carson doesn’t have enough for me to do. (I wouldn’t expect paying, of course, since I won’t be able to do all my old duties.)_

_What do you think? It was just an idea I had, but perhaps you could broach the subject with Mrs. Hughes, and if she doesn’t think it’s completely out of the question, and she could talk to Mr. Carson, etc. But if you don’t feel it’s a good idea, forget about it, and I’ll think of something else._

_Letters should still reach me here at the hospital through the beginning of next week._

_Thomas_

Writing that letter was quite possibly the most humiliating experience of Thomas’s life, but reading it over, it didn’t seem _too_ bad. Apart from the brazen audacity of the request, he thought he’d managed to strike a casual enough tone—as though this were simply a passing notion, instead of the only even vaguely feasible idea he’d been able to come up with. 

Still, it took all the will-power he had to put it in an envelope, affix a stamp, and put it in the mail bag, instead of lighting it on fire.

#

Mrs. Hughes glanced up from the letter that Anna had just handed to her. “What’s this about the ‘soon-to-be-former Mrs. B’?”

She’d forgotten about that part. “Mrs. Bates,” Anna explained. “Mr. Bates is hoping she’ll consent to a divorce. It’s the next paragraph.”

“Home leave? Well, that’s nice—oh. Oh, dear.” 

“Yes,” said Anna. “You see why I brought it to you.” She couldn’t imagine refusing to help, but nor could she imagine asking Lord and Lady Grantham to take in a footman on leave from the Army. 

“I do,” she said. “Of course we must find a way for him to come here—this is the only home he has. But it’s not precisely a regular sort of arrangement, and you know how Mr. Carson feels about irregularity.”

Anna nodded. “I expect that’s why Thomas didn’t write to him to begin with.” That, and the fact that Mr. Carson didn’t like Thomas very much. 

Mrs. Hughes considered. “Perhaps it would be best if Mr. Bates spoke to his lordship,” she suggested. “Broach the subject, as Thomas says. Lord knows he talks enough about how he’d like to contribute more to the war.”

“I don’t think this is precisely the sort of contribution he has in mind,” Anna said dryly. 

“Perhaps not, but Thomas _has_ been wounded in the service of king and country, so it _is_ a contribution.”

She had a point. “I’ll speak to Mr. Bates, and see what he thinks,” she said. 

Mr. Bates, as it turned out, received the suggestion with great skepticism. “Really?” he asked, once she had finished explaining what Thomas—and she, and Mrs. Hughes—wanted.

“He doesn’t have anywhere else to go.”

“You have to admit, it takes a bit of nerve, considering the way he carried on about my limp when I first came here. At least I was taking a job that was available. I didn’t ask his lordship to _invent_ one for me.”

“He doesn’t want a job, exactly,” she pointed out. “And it’s only temporary.”

“Temporary until he gets his feet under the table again,” Mr. Bates said. She gave him a steady look, and he sighed. “I won’t stand in the way, but do _I_ have to be the one to suggest it?”

“You can casually bring it up to his lordship,” Anna explained. “Get an idea of how he feels about it. Say that Thomas has got home leave, remind his lordship that he hasn’t any family, and so on. If Mrs. Hughes or I asked, we’d have to start by saying we wanted a favor.”

Mr. Bates scoffed, and shook his head, but said, “Fine. But only because _you’re_ the one asking.”

#

“We’ve had a letter from Thomas,” Bates remarked as he put Robert’s evening coat in the wardrobe. 

“Oh? How is he getting on?” Robert remembered that he’d been wounded a few months back, in that terrible business on the Somme, and that he was now recovering in a hospital in London.

“Well enough. He says he’s completed his treatment, and he’s hoping for Home Service.”

“That’s good.” It was plain enough that Bates was working his way up to asking for something; he only hoped it wasn’t to stop him being sent back to France. “I should think he’d have a good chance, seeing as he’s been at the Front for a while, and been wounded.”

“Yes, my lord. They’ve given him two months’ home leave, to continue recuperating before his medical panel.”

“Oh.” That put a different complexion on things—more like they wanted him to convalesce at his own expense before invaliding him out. “Just how badly injured is he?”

“He’s been a bit cagy about that,” Bates admitted. “We’re fairly certain he still has both arms.”

That was good; Robert had no idea what they’d do with a one-armed footman. “I suppose he’s luckier than some. And if the Army can’t find a use for him, perhaps he’ll be back before William’s called up. Carson ought to like that.” Carson had never precisely approved of Thomas, but with the shortage of manpower, perhaps he’d come to appreciate him. 

“Yes, my lord.” Bates hesitated.

Now they were getting to whatever the request was, Robert supposed. “What is it?”

“I don’t know if you remember, but he has no family to speak of. And we’re not using his old room for anything, since we’ve not taken on any new male staff. Anna and Mrs. Hughes have been discussing whether it might be suitable for him to come here while he’s on leave.”

And there it was. Honestly, Robert had expected worse. “What does Carson say to this plan?” If Carson had forbidden it, Robert really didn’t think he ought to override him—not again. 

“I don’t believe they’ve spoken to him about it yet. I’m sure the first thing he’d want to know is whether you and her ladyship would find it an imposition.”

Robert sighed inwardly. In other words, they hoped to be able to tell Carson that he’d already given his approval. Bates did seem to enjoy putting him in an awkward position regarding Carson and Thomas. “If Carson and Mrs. Hughes both think it a good idea, I won’t object,” he said carefully. “I don’t suppose they’d release him from the hospital if he still required any sort of special looking-after?”

“I don’t think so,” Bates said. “He spoke of making himself useful downstairs.”

Good. “I do think we’ve some obligation, in the circumstances,” Robert said. And it wouldn’t hurt to get some idea of his capacities before he came looking for his job back. “But if Carson or Mrs. Hughes feels it’s a disruption, we’ll think of something else. Perhaps one of the tenants could take on a paying guest.” Several households in the village billeted the men who worked at the hospital, which Robert understood was a useful supplement to income while their men were away. They could help pay for it, if necessary—it wouldn’t be much, and if the estate manager could point out a household that was struggling, both parties could benefit from the same expenditure.

“Very good, my lord.”

#

“This is not a hostel for down-on-their-luck ex-servicemen,” Mr. Carson said.

“No one’s saying it is,” Mrs. Hughes responded. They’d certainly been right to approach his lordship first. “He’s lived here for years—where else would he go?”

“He’s _worked_ here for years,” Mr. Carson corrected. 

Mrs. Hughes ignored him. “His lordship has said that if we find it inconvenient, he’ll find him lodging in the village. Do you really think it best to put him to that trouble—not to mention expense—when we have rooms standing empty on the men’s corridor?”

“I think that Thomas should never have asked in the first place,” Mr. Carson said. “Nor should Mr. Bates have troubled his lordship with it.” He sighed. “But now that he has, I suppose we’ve little choice.”

#

As the train neared Downton Village, Thomas looked again at the letter he’d had from Mrs. Hughes:

_4 November, 1916_

_Dear Thomas,_

_Yes, of course you should come here. We’ve not taken on any male staff since the war began, so your room is just as you left it, and I’ll have your things brought down from the attics. Let us know what train to expect you on._

_We’re all looking forward to seeing for ourselves that you’re safe and sound, and to hearing about your time in France._

_Sincerely,_

_Elsie Hughes_

He couldn’t quite believe that it had all been that easy; part of him wondered if it might not be some sort of cruel joke. Not that Mrs. Hughes was likely to do such a thing, but he wouldn’t put it past O’Brien—Anna had written that she’d lately been amusing herself at the expense of the newest housemaid. She’d probably find it very funny to have him turn up at the back door, and everyone wondering what he thought he was doing.

But Thomas knew both Mrs. Hughes’s writing and O’Brien’s, and this was definitely the former. 

Tucking the letter back into his pocket, he looked out the window at the familiar approach to the Downton station. It looked just as it always had, which shouldn’t be a surprise—it had only been a year and a half—but it was, just the same. 

When the train puffed to a stop, he put his rucksack over his good shoulder and hopped off, looking about to see if everything was as he remembered it. The station hadn’t gotten any closer to the house, unfortunately, and he was contemplating a quick stop at the pub—it was a warm day, for October, and a long walk—when the horn of a nearby motorcar sounded, making him jump. 

He looked to see who was making all the racket, and saw that it was, of all people, Lady Edith. And now she was leaning out the driver’s-side window and waving. Thomas looked behind him to see who she could possibly be waving to, and, seeing no one, cautiously approached. “My lady,” he said, with a nod. He _had_ said that he’d be making himself useful; perhaps he could begin by rounding up whoever it was she had come to the station to meet. As long as he wasn’t expected to help with the guest’s luggage—he has his good hand full with his own. 

“Corporal Barrow,” she said, returning the nod. “You look very smart.”

Thank God he was back in his proper uniform, and not hospital blues. “That’s kind of you to say.”

“I hope the journey wasn’t difficult.”

“Not at all.” He wished she’d say what she wanted—there was another motor-car behind hers, and the driver looked to be getting tired of waiting for her to move out of the way. 

She noticed it too, and leaned out the window to make a placating gesture. “You’d better hop in, quick,” she said.

“My lady?”

“I’m not sure there’s room for him to get around.”

Oh. Apparently he was hitching a ride with Lady Edith and the mystery guest. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, he quickly circled round the car and got into the front passenger seat. 

With a crash of gears, Lady Edith set the car into motion. “I’m not quite an expert yet.”

“My lady?”

“At driving,” she explained, turning onto the lane that led from the station to the house. Weren’t they picking up anyone else? She continued, “I haven’t had as much practice as I’d like, because everyone asks Branson first if they want to go anywhere, and I can’t waste petrol just driving around for no reason.”

“How vexing,” he said. They were definitely heading towards the house. Perhaps she’d had some other errand in the village—or had decided to come and fetch him from the station simply as an excuse to drive the car. 

“Of course, there are worse problems to have,” Lady Edith said quickly, looking embarrassed.

Thomas remembered how, at the orthopedic hospital, it was nearly impossible to complain about anything in front of the amputees without feeling slightly ashamed of yourself. Especially the ones who had lost two or more limbs. In a house where no one else had been shot at all—except for Bates—he supposed his relatively minor wound could have the same effect on people. “I expect there will be more driving for you to do if Branson’s called up,” he said.

“Yes,” Lady Edith said. “That’s why I learnt—I wanted to do something useful, even if it was only filling in for a man here at home. But I suppose even if my driving _were_ useful, it would be a very small contribution compared to everything that’s happening in France.”

It was, but Thomas could hardly say that. “It does give the men some comfort, to know that things back home are continuing much as they always have.” That was true, though not precisely to the point of what Lady Edith had said. “You see the French villages that have been destroyed, and imagine what it would be like if it were all happening here.” Thomas did not, in fact imagine that—not often, anyway—but he remembered Lieutenant Crawley talking about it. 

They rounded a curve—Lady Edith braked with a bit of a jolt—and Downton came into view ahead of them. “I can’t even imagine.”

No, Thomas was sure she couldn’t. 

When they reached the house, Lady Edith drove around to the side and pulled the car up to the garage, where Branson came out to collect it and put it away—like a groom taking her horse after she’d been for a ride. Thomas thanked her for the lift and stood awkwardly, his rucksack at his feet, until she’d walked out of sight around the front of the house. 

Branson, leaning on the open driver’s-side door, said, “Did you ever think you’d see this place again?”

Thomas looked up at the house and then admitted, “No.” 

Chuckling, Branson slid into the driver’s seat, and Thomas gathered up his rucksack and started for the house. The kitchen courtyard looked strangely empty to Thomas, even though he couldn’t see that anything was missing. After a moment, he realized it was that anywhere he’d been for the last year and a half, a place like that would have had at least half a dozen men in it—patients put outside for some fresh air, or orderlies cadging a smoke. 

Inside, he knew, they’d be getting the upstairs tea ready to take up. Daisy and Mrs. Patmore might be putting the finishing touches on cakes or finger sandwiches, and Carson would be setting a silver teapot onto a tray. 

Perhaps Thomas would polish it, later. 

There were some wooden crates near the back door, and Thomas sat down on one, lighting a cigarette. He’d best put himself into a frame of mind to be grateful he was here, he knew. Not that he was _un_ grateful, exactly. Being here was certainly the best of the options available to him. But the thought of stepping through that door felt like….

Not like going into the grave; he would not be that histrionic about it. Like going into his old primary school, perhaps, and cramming himself into a child’s desk. And worse, being the only one to see the absurdity of it. 

He’d shed Thomas, everyone’s least favorite footman, like a snake’s skin, and become Corporal Barrow, the Magnificent Bastard, who was good at field triage and kept his head in no-man’s land. And now….

Now he was here again. He’d probably smoked hundreds of cigarettes in this courtyard—thousands.

And he was sitting, he realized, to one side of the crate, because he’d left room for Rawlins to come and crowd in beside him, like he always did when Thomas sneaked off on his own to brood. 

Instead, the door banged open, and it was Daisy, with a bowl of scraps to toss into the bin. “He’s out here!” she called over her shoulder. “What are you doing out here? Everyone’s waiting for you to turn up.”

Thomas lifted the cigarette in explanation. 

“Thomas!” Anna appeared in the doorway. “What are you doing out here?”

“Smoking,” he said. 

“Well, finish it, and come inside!”

The cigarette was nearly finished, so Thomas took a last drag, flicked it away, and went inside. 

Daisy had been exaggerating slightly when she said that everyone was waiting for him, but quite a few of them were assembled in the servants’ hall—Bates, William, Miss O’Brien, and a couple of maids he didn’t know. Mrs. Hughes came in a moment later, from her sitting room, and said, “Well, aren’t you looking well!”

“Thank you,” Thomas said, looking around at all of them. What were they expecting, exactly? A show?

Miss O’Brien glanced up from her sewing. “You _do_ look well,” she said, in quite a different tone than Mrs. Hughes had. “What about this wound we’ve heard so much about, then?”

“It’s in my shoulder,” Thomas pointed out. “Would you like me to strip off right here so that you can have a look at it?”

Naturally, that was the moment Carson chose to turn up. “I beg your pardon?”

“Sorry, Mr. Carson,” Thomas said. If he’d been laying bets on how far he’d get into his return to Downton before he had to say _that_ again, he’d have expected at _least_ five minutes. Clearly he’d been too optimistic. 

Carson gave him one of his usual looks of contempt—Thomas hadn’t missed those one bit—before turning to William and saying, “You can go up for the tea-tray in a quarter of an hour. Fully clothed, if you don’t mind.”

Once he’d gone, Thomas remarked, “Now I feel I’m really back,” to no one in particular. 

He’d sort of expected a “too right” or a “typical,” but instead there was a clanging silence, which Mrs. Hughes finally broke by saying, “We’ll be having our tea in about an hour, if you’d like to take your things upstairs.”

“I would, thanks,” he said, and escaped. 

His old room was, indeed, just as he’d left it—they hadn’t even taken the label with his name off the door. The sight was simultaneously comforting and nauseating. Had they kept a place for him, all this time? Had they thought all along he’d come crawling back? Had they feared that taking down his name would tempt the fates to snuff out his life? Had they simply never given a thought to the room, or its occupant? 

He shook off the questions and went inside. They had, as Mrs. Hughes had said, brought down his trunk; it was sitting rather awkwardly in the middle of the floor. He’d have to remember to drag it into a more convenient spot before everyone went to sleep; he was bound to make quite a racket. 

Leaving his rucksack on top of the trunk, he crossed to the window and opened it—the room had a stuffy, un-aired feel—and then made up the bed. Someone had left a stack of bedding on the mattress—nice of them—and he was certainly experienced enough at the task to make quick work of it. 

Unpacking his rucksack—shaving things, a few changes of shirts and underclothes—he considered where to stash the biscuit-tin that held his letters, before realizing that since nearly all of them were from people in this house, there wasn’t any particular need to hide them. Even if anyone—Miss O’Brien, for instance—did decide to rummage through them, the worst she’d find was one or two from Nurse Fortescue, whose given name turned out to be Harriet, inquiring whether they might see each other after the war. (Thomas, in his replies, feigned ignorance as to the significance of the question, saying only that he didn’t know where he’d be after the war, and she’d soon given up.)

Those simple chores took little enough time that he could have begun unpacking his trunk as well, but he knew what was in there, under all his civilian clothes: the locked box containing his letters from Peter. The key to it was on his watch-chain.

Well, as he was still in the Army, he ought only to be wearing his uniform, anyway. 

His armchair, a battered one he’d swiped from the attic as a treat to himself for becoming first footman, was still by the window, so he sat in it and put his feet up on the sill. Christ, it really was like he’d never left. 

#

Thomas _did_ look well, Anna thought, as he came down to tea. Well, but…different. It wasn’t just the uniform, or the stiff way he carried his left arm—about which she was as curious as Miss O’Brien, although now that the other woman had put her foot in it, Anna was going to have to be even more cautious about asking. Lady Mary had spoken, a few times, about a change in Mr. Matthew—“as though he knows things he can never tell me,” she said once—and perhaps that was the change Anna saw in Thomas, as well. 

“Look at all this,” he observed, slipping into his old place beside her, as Daisy and Mrs. Patmore brought in platters of food. “Is it some kind of an occasion?”

Daisy said, “It’s not every day you come home from the war, is it?” She put a plate of minced chicken sandwiches directly in front of Thomas’s place. 

Thomas glanced at her sharply. “I suppose not.”

“What do they give you for your tea, in the Army, then?” asked Ethel, inspecting her fingernails.

“Bread and jam,” Thomas said. “Or bread and cheese.” 

“Is that all?” Mrs. Patmore asked, putting some rock cakes next to the sandwiches.

“Usually,” Thomas answered. “We have dinner earlier, though.” 

“I suppose you don’t have to wait around starving while that lot linger over their coffee and cigars,” Ethel said, jerking her chin in the direction of the ceiling. 

“Ethel!” Mrs. Hughes said sharply. 

Next to her, Thomas huffed. “We give the patients their dinner first,” he explained, “but it’s a good deal less elaborate.”

“You don’t say,” Ethel said, in what was probably supposed to be a sultry tone. It occurred to Anna that, between one thing and another, it was likely no one had told her about Thomas. 

It was about then that Mr. Carson came in, and they all stood up—Thomas a beat behind the rest of them. The next few moments they were all occupied with passing platters and filling their plates. 

Anna kept an eye on Thomas, and noticed that he scarcely used his left hand—when Mrs. Hughes passed him something from the left, he would reach across himself to take it with his right hand. But then when they started eating, he held his fork in his left, and didn’t seem to have much trouble with it. 

“How was the train?” Mrs. Hughes asked Thomas. 

“Fine,” he said cautiously, as though he thought the question might be some sort of trap.

“I expect it’s a bit of an adjustment,” Mr. Bates said. “Being back in England.”

“A bit,” he said, still sounding wary.

“I found myself missing the strangest things, when I got back from South Africa. The way Army tents smell in the rain, these birds that used to make such a racket in the mornings.” 

Thomas rotated his teacup in his hand. “So far, I mostly miss the people.”

“Of course,” said Mr. Bates. “That, too. Even the ones you didn’t like very much.”

“I don’t know about _that_ ,” Thomas said, and then seemed to be waiting for a reaction that didn’t come. 

After a moment, Ethel said, “What’ll you do with your leave, then?” She tilted her head to look at him through her eyelashes. Anna was _definitely_ going to have to tell her the facts.

Thomas took a sip of his tea. “I hadn’t really thought about it. Whatever needs doing, I suppose.”

Mr. Carson cleared his throat, and Mrs. Hughes said quickly, “Of course, we don’t expect you to _work_ while you’re on leave. You’re meant to be convalescing.”

Thomas looked a little surprised by that, which in turn surprised Anna. He’d written in his letter of making himself useful, but he’d never exactly gone out of his way to look for things to do when he was actually working at Downton. 

Cautiously, Thomas said, “At this point, it’s the best thing for me to use the shoulder as much as I can. But if you don’t have anything for me to do, I’ll see what I can do down at the village hospital—there’s bound to be plenty of work there.”

“That may be best,” said Mr. Carson. “As it is the Army which employs you, at the moment.”

After they’d finished their tea, Thomas went out into the courtyard for a cigarette, and Anna joined him there. “It’s so good to have you back,” she said. “And looking so well! We were all worried.”

Lighting his cigarette, he said, “I wasn’t really in any danger after the first night.” 

That might be true, but it wasn’t as though they had known that. 

He went on, “Infection, of course, but like I said in my letter, my mates looked after me. Made sure I got the dressing changed regularly, and everything.”

He’d mentioned his mates a few times, she noticed. “Is there…anyone in particular that you miss?”

He gave her a sharp look, and flicked ash from his cigarette. “Not like _that_ , no.” He seemed about to say something, then took a puff from his cigarette instead. Looking out over the courtyard wall, he said, “They all liked me there, is the thing.” 

Oh. Anna would have liked to say that they all liked him here, too, but it wouldn’t be entirely true, and Thomas knew it. Certainly no one wished him ill—with the possible exception of Miss O’Brien—but several would have been just as pleased if he’d been doing well somewhere else. Mr. Carson chief among them.

Thomas must have been thinking along similar lines; he continued, “I mean, I suppose Carson would just about piss on me if I were on fire—pardon my language—but that first night after I was shot, the Wardmaster and Captain—one of the medical officers—gave me a blood transfusion. On the sly, like. We weren’t doing them that night, because we were so busy. It, uh, it ties up the donor for about an hour, and we couldn’t spare the men for it. But they did it ‘cause it was me.” 

Anna wasn’t entirely certain what a blood transfusion meant, but it sounded serious. “Were you….” Searching for a word, she settled on the euphemism he had used. “In danger, then?”

“Well, they don’t give them out for nothing,” Thomas said. “I don’t remember a lot from that night, but I must’ve been losing quite a bit of blood.”

That was likely as close as he’d come to saying that he could have died. She wondered if they would have gotten a telegram, or just never heard from him again. “It’s good that there was something they could do,” she ventured. 

Thomas nodded, curtly. “So I’d have liked to stay there, but I couldn’t. They were pushing things to keep me there until they knew I wouldn’t come to any harm being put on a train and ignored for a few days.” 

Anna had heard a bit from Lady Sybil about the state some of the patients were in when they arrived at the village hospital, and could understand why Thomas’s friends had wanted him to be looked after by people who cared about him, for as long as possible. “I suppose it’s very difficult, looking after injured people while they’re in transit.”

“It is. Especially when there’s such a large number, at one time. They just, uh, keep moving them along the chain of evacuation until they get far enough from the fighting that the staff aren’t so pressed. I expect quite a few got all the way here before they were properly seen to.”

“That’s what Lady Sybil said,” she agreed. 

Thomas tossed away the end of his cigarette and lit another. “I’m sure they’re quite busy there.” She nodded, and he continued, “They should have something for me to do, then. I expect it’ll help a bit, when it comes to getting Home Service. I can’t lift stretchers, is the real problem.” He transferred his cigarette to his right hand and held his left out, a few inches to the side. “That’s about as far up as that arm will go, now. I can’t salute with that hand, either,” he added, putting his hand behind his back. “But I can manage ‘at ease,’ so that’s something.”

“Don’t you salute with your right hand, anyway?” Anna tried to remember how she’d seen it done. 

“Depends where the officer is,” Thomas explained. “If he’s straight ahead, you use the right. If he’s passing from one side or the other—or you’re passing him from one side or the other—you salute with the hand further away from him.”

“That seems needlessly complicated,” Anna observed. 

Thomas gave another one-shouldered shrug, switching his cigarette back to his left hand. “Imagine you’ve got a whole company of men who’ve been marching all day in the sun. They pass by an officer, and they all raise their arms at the same time….” 

He demonstrated, and Anna saw the problem. “Oh.”

He nodded. “Could be deadly. Doesn’t come up very often in a hospital, though. You only salute them if they’ve got a hat on.” 

Anna supposed it would be fairly silly to salute officers lying in hospital beds—you’d be doing it all day, for one thing. “I imagine there’s quite a bit you’ll be able to manage, in the hospital.”

“Oh, sure.” He rotated his wrist and elbow. “It’s fine from the elbow down. I have to be careful lifting things, as it’s still a bit weak, but that’ll improve.”

Did that mean the rest of it wouldn’t? She decided to ask, and Thomas explained about nerve damage, torn ligaments, and some joint with a long name, which was apparently where the collar-bone met the shoulder-blade. “I’m not sure I realized that it did,” she admitted. Wasn’t one on the back, and the other on the front?

“I didn’t either, until I had trouble with mine,” Thomas said. “There’s a bit of the shoulder-blade that sticks out, and the collar-bone curves back to meet it.” He pointed to his own left shoulder, presumably to where it was. “It turns out the shoulder’s one of the more complicated joints in the body. There’s three different moving parts: where the humerus—that’s the upper arm—fits into the socket, the acromioclavicular, and then the shoulder-blade’s meant to sort of glide across your ribs, in several different directions. I’ve got trouble with the second two.” 

It did indeed sound complicated—and Thomas sounded very knowledgeable about it all. He was showing off, of course, but she found that she’d missed that, about him.

#

“You’re on medical leave from the RAMC,” Major Clarkson said slowly, “but you’d like to work here while you’re on it?”

“Yes, sir,” Thomas said. Honestly, he wasn’t sure why this concept was so confusing to everyone. He’d worked in both of the hospitals where he’d been as a patient. “You have volunteers, don’t you?” The London hospital had—mostly well-off women who came in and read to patients, avoiding contact with anything which looked or smelled unpleasant, but still. “I’d like to volunteer.”

“You understand I can’t pay you? Funding for our military operations comes from the War Office, and as the Army has you on leave, my hands are tied.”

“Yes, sir.” He hadn’t said anything about wanting to be paid, had he? “They’ve been kind enough to let me stay up at the Abbey, so I’ve no major expenses to worry about.”

“And you mustn’t expect any special treatment when it comes time for your medical panel. I may very well be on it, but I must make my recommendation upon the relevant, medical facts of the case.”

Damn. “Yes, sir.” He hesitated. “Although I had thought—hoped—that if I had a chance to show how much of the work I can manage, with my arm being the way it is, that might be a relevant fact, sir.”

“I see,” said Major Clarkson, giving him an assessing sort of look.

Slightly encouraged, Thomas went on, “I can’t lift stretchers, and I know that’s a bit of an inconvenience to work around, sir, but I am fully trained in ward duties, and I’ve had a fair bit of experience with the clerical side of things. Recordkeeping and so on.”

“Very well,” Major Clarkson said, with a nod. “It’s a bit irregular, but quite a bit about our staffing is irregular. Sister Crawley—Mrs. Crawley—is acting as Ward Sister. If you’re ready to start immediately, you can report to her. We’ve a convoy of new patients coming in this afternoon, so I’m sure she’ll have something for you to do.”

So Thomas went back out into the main ward and reported to Mrs. Sister Crawley, who received him with less skepticism than anyone so far. “Yes, Cousin Cora mentioned you’d be convalescing up at the big house,” she said. “I think it’s a very good idea for you to keep busy. It can be very draining, having nothing expected of you.”

“Yes, Sister,” Thomas said. “The specialists said that at this point, work’s the best thing for it. I got in the habit of doing everything with my right hand, while it was healing, so now I’ve got to build up strength and figure out how to get the most use out of it.”

“Just by-the-by, the other RAMC men call me ‘ma’am,’ rather than ‘Sister,’ as my status here isn’t quite official.” 

That must be what Major Clarkson had meant about other aspects of the staffing being irregular.

“Let me see the range-of-motion.”

So he showed her what he had shown Anna, with the addition of demonstrating that he if he used his other hand to do it, he could pull his arm a bit further forward than it would go on its own. “The passive range of motion is a bit greater than the active, because of the nerve damage,” he explained. “That might improve a bit, and I’ll be able to lift more weight with it once I’ve built it back up.” 

“Let’s see how you manage with bed-making,” she decided. “It’s a nice, two-handed job, but not too taxing.”

She pointed Thomas in the direction of the linen cupboard, and he got to work. The other Nurse Crawley was engaged with stripping the vacant beds, and frequently stopped to exchange a few words with nearby patients while she was doing it, so in time, Thomas caught up to her. “You’re very quick at that,” she observed, with a smile. “I can do it quickly, or neatly, but not both at the same time.”

“I’ve had a great deal of practice,” Thomas said. Was he supposed to say “my lady,” now? Probably not—he did not, as Carson had so kindly emphasized, work for the Crawley family anymore. 

She appeared to take no offense. “And I’m still a beginner.”

They got busier once the convoy arrived. It was quite small compared to the convoys Thomas had gotten used to at the Base Hospital—only four ambulances, carrying about a dozen cases—but the staff was correspondingly smaller as well. 

At first, Thomas went outside with the others to meet the ambulances, but after explaining two or three times that he wasn’t able to lift stretchers, he decided that his presence there was doing more harm than good, and went back inside to get started on getting the patients settled. 

Once everyone was in a bed and had been checked on by Major Clarkson or Sister Crawley, they started on bed-baths and changes of clothing. No screens were used, and the two Nurses Crawley took part, working together on the same patient. It had been the same at the Base Hospital, of course, and Nurse Fortescue was quite likely the junior Nurse Crawley’s social equal, but Thomas was still a bit shocked. This was, after all, _Lady Sybil,_ not only in a room with naked men, but actually touching and looking at them. 

While the work was going on, she showed no sign that there was anything at all unusual in it, but a bit later, met Thomas by the tea-urn—not entirely by chance, Thomas suspected. 

“I haven’t,” she said, filling a teacup, “gone into detail about the work here, with everyone up at the house.”

Thomas nodded, taking a sip of his tea. It might have felt daring to do that earlier in the morning, but not after all the nudity. 

“It isn’t a secret, but it seems better for everyone not to draw attention to the…aspects they might find surprising.”

“I understand,” Thomas said. 

“I thought you would,” Nurse Crawley said, with a smile. “I want to be taken seriously, and it’ll be that much more difficult if Papa or someone makes a fuss.”

So it wasn’t a secret, but she didn’t want Lord Grantham knowing about it. Thomas considered whether there was any way this could reflect badly on him, if it came out. “I should think,” he said carefully, aware that he was rehearsing a potential defense, “that it would be for Sister Crawley to say there was anything unsuitable being asked of you. As she’s Acting Ward Sister, and a member of the family.”

“Yes,” said Nurse Crawley. “That’s precisely how I see it. And she’s very sensible about these sorts of things.”

“I get that impression,” Thomas said. “While we’re on the subject,” he added, “is it Nurse Crawley, when we’re on duty, or Lady Sybil?”

“Nurse Crawley, please,” she said. “It’s a bit confusing as there are two of us, but I don’t want to put on airs. And you?”

“Hm? Oh, Corporal Barrow, if you don’t mind.” Under the circumstances, “Thomas” would sound awfully familiar—and he _was_ starting to feel like Corporal Barrow again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Historical notes:  
> 1) “Hospital blues” were a cheap and unflattering uniform issued to enlisted men convalescing in hospital. (Officers wore their regular uniforms or their own clothes while convalescing.) Nobody much liked hospital blues, but, because they were made in only a few sizes and of wash-and-wear fabric, they were a more convenient way to clothe the convalescent men, versus replacing their duty uniforms, which were usually too filthy or damaged to be worn. Hospital blues also helped to identify the wearer as a patient, which was important because patients were subject to different rules than soldiers who were on duty or on leave. 
> 
> Here (https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30100153) is an Imperial War Museum photo of a hospital blue jacket, and this blog entry (http://blog.wellcomelibrary.org/2010/06/the-convalescent-blues-in-frederick-cayley-robinsons-acts-of-mercy/) includes multiple period illustrations of hospital blues. 
> 
> 2) The disciplines now known as physical therapy and occupational therapy gained prominence during and after the Great War, because there were so many previously-healthy men who needed it. One source I used on the subject is the 1918 book, _Reclaiming the Maimed: A Handbook of Physical Therapy_ , full text available through HathiTrust (https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100302426). 
> 
> Thomas’s observation that the physical therapists focus most of their attention on amputees is drawn from my observation of that emphasis in the medical literature of the period. However, I’m only guessing that the emphasis in the literature mirrors actual practice—and it’s also possible that material about amputations is over-represented in the online sources I relied on.


	21. Chapter 17: November-December, 1916

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the village hospital, Thomas settles in and begins making himself indispensable. At Downton, friends and enemies alike struggle to understand the changes they see in him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content notes: Heavier-than-usual medical gore.

Once Thomas was settled into the hospital routine, he didn’t spend many of his waking hours at the house, which was a relief. After a few days, Major Clarkson had deemed it acceptable for him to take his meals with the other orderlies, when he was on duty. It was a substantial drop in quality compared to Mrs. Patmore’s cooking, but meant he didn’t have to deal with William’s eagerness for stories of life at the Front, O’Brien’s open skepticism about the severity and even existence of his wound, or Carson’s general disapproval of everything down to the way he breathed. 

The other orderlies, by way of a refreshing contrast, treated him uncomplicatedly as one of the group. His association with the “big house” did prompt a few questions about who the Nurses Crawley were in civilian life, and why Sister Crawley wasn’t called Lady Crawley, but that was about all the special interest they took in him. There were about a section’s worth of orderlies, most of them medically disqualified from overseas service—flat feet, asthma, heart murmurs, and the like—but there were a couple of others who had been put on Home Service after being wounded overseas, and they had settled the others’ curiosity about the Front before Thomas got there—either by satisfying it or discouraging it; Thomas didn’t ask which. 

The other orderlies were all privates, and the nursing staff consisted of the two Nurses Crawley, two more VADs, and a private duty nurse, of about Sister Crawley’s vintage, who before the war had primarily nursed elderly ladies, and found the switch to a busy—if small—military hospital to be a challenging one. As a result, among the support staff, Thomas was second only to Sister Crawley in terms of expertise, and was soon entrusted with complicated cases, helping to assess newly-arrived patients, and other kinds of skilled work. 

The pace of new arrivals was fairly sedate—they got a convoy about once a week, and the occasional single patient, usually someone in stable condition who’d been transferred nearer to home—but the work was steady, because they were usually at full capacity, or at least near to it, and every case they saw was serious enough to warrant being sent back to England. 

One day’s convoy, for instance, brought them three amputations—one leg, two arm—a couple of chest cases, some nasty flesh wounds, and a gut wound. The latter had gotten through the most dangerous stage—hence his evacuation to England—and had some chance at surviving, but required irrigation of the wound every two hours, around the clock, in hopes of preventing a fatal infection from developing.

Thomas was doing one of these, explaining to one of the other orderlies as he went, when he became aware of Sister Crawley watching him. He wondered if, perhaps, he wasn’t supposed to be doing this, but she didn’t tell him to stop, so he went on, “So this tube is for the fluids to drain out—you can tell because it’s lower. If you put the antiseptic in here, it’ll just come right back out. That wouldn’t do him any harm, if you made that mistake, as long as you realized you’d got it wrong and did it over, properly.”

The orderly—Franklin, his name was—nodded. “Because it won’t have done him much good, either, Corp?”

“Right.” He tapped the drainage tube. “You also want to make note of how much fluid you’re putting in, and how much you’re getting out. It’s normal for it to be a bit less—a couple of ccs—but if you’re not getting most of it back out, that means…?”

“Well, it’s still in there,” Franklin said. “Is that bad for him?”

“Depends on what kind of solution it is,” Thomas said. “The stronger antiseptics can damage the tissue if they’re left in contact too long. This shouldn’t, but if it’s not coming out, the MO’s going to want to know, so he can find out why. If it’s a new patient, it could be the tubes aren’t placed just right—or if it was draining properly before, there could be some new swelling or adhesion in there. It’s not our job to sort out what’s gone wrong, just to notice that _something_ has, and bring it to the MO’s attention.”

The fluid had finished draining out, so he held the glass collection jar up to the light. “If there’s more of it, or if it’s a drastically different color coming out than it was going in, that’s another thing the MO should hear about. Or if it’s noticeably foul-smelling. What do you make of this?”

“It’s a bit pink, isn’t it? From blood?”

Thomas nodded. “That’s not too surprising, especially given he’s just been moved, and the color’s very faint, but I might note it on the chart. What do you think, Nurse Crawley?”

“I quite agree,” she said. “I don’t think it’s anything to be concerned about at this stage, but we’ll want to keep an eye out for further signs of internal bleeding.”

She moved off then, leaving Thomas and Franklin to continue the irrigation, but returned a few minutes later, with Major Clarkson. 

Thomas really thought he was in for it then, but they were in the middle of re-dressing the wound, so he carried on. “Right, and then one more layer of bandage over the ends of the tubes, so we’re not leaving the door wide open for germs to get in.” Once Franklin had finished that, he straightened up and said, “Sir, ma’am,” nodding to them in turn. 

“Corporal Barrow,” the Major said, “would you be able to take night duty tonight?”

That certainly wasn’t what he was expecting. “Of course, sir,” he said. 

“I know it’s short notice,” said Sister Crawley, “but we need someone here who knows how to do Captain Prescott’s dressing changes, and I’m expected at a Red Cross function in Ripon. And you’ll have done night duty in France, I expect.”

“I have,” he agreed. 

“Splendid,” said Sister Crawley. “I would cancel, but I’m giving the lecture, you see, so it would disappoint everyone. Perhaps you could go home and have a bit of a rest now, and come back after supper?”

Thomas glanced at Major Clarkson, who nodded. “Yes, ma’am.” 

So after asking a few questions about the procedure for summoning a medical officer, should one be required, and whether anyone else would be on night duty—one of the other orderlies and a VAD—he walked up to the house. 

It was close to tea-time, and “after supper” at the hospital was several hours before the servants’ dinner, so Thomas decided he had better put off resting in favor of getting something to eat while he could. When he got to the servants’ hall, Anna looked up from a bit of sewing and observed, “You’re back early.”

“I got put on night duty,” he explained, slipping into the seat next to Anna’s. “A complicated case just arrived, so they need someone experienced.” 

Across the table, Miss O’Brien scoffed. 

Thomas ignored her. “So they sent me off to rest and get something to eat, before I report back in the evening.” Something occurred to him. “Do you know if anyone has an alarm clock?”

Anna considered. “I don’t think so. But I’m sure someone can wake you.” 

Given the option, Thomas would rather have relied upon clockwork than anyone he could plausibly ask—Anna couldn’t do it, as she’d have to enter the men’s corridor—but he _didn’t_ have the option, and so said, “I hope so. It’s important I get back on time. Nurse Crawley has an engagement in Ripon, so she can’t stay.”

“I hope you don’t mean Lady Sybil,” said Miss O’Brien, primly.

“No, Nurse Crawley, senior,” Thomas clarified, then added, “Well, they could both be going, for all I know—it’s a Red Cross lecture. One of the other VAD girls is on duty.” 

Anna put down her sewing and gave him an incredulous look. 

“What?”

Miss O’Brien answered, instead. “You’d best not let Mr. Carson hear you calling Lady Sybil a _VAD girl_.” She said it loudly enough that, had Carson been anywhere nearby, he’d no doubt have come rushing into the room to avenge the insult.

Fortunately, he didn’t seem to be—he was likely dealing with the upstairs tea, at this time. “Thank you for that reminder, Miss O’Brien.” The really irritating part was that she was right. At the hospital, it would have been fine—that was how they were referred to, as a group, and the younger Nurse Crawley didn’t want any distinction made between her and the other two VADs, who were the daughters of a banker and a curate—but they weren’t at the hospital. 

About then, Daisy came in to lay the tea. “Thomas! What are you doing here?” So he had to explain again. When he’d finished, she asked, “What sort of case is it?”

“An abdominal wound,” he said. “The risk of infection is extremely high, so it’s got to be specially cleaned every two hours, and monitored for the slightest sign of trouble.” 

Ethel, who had taken her place down below Anna while Thomas was explaining, propped her chin on her hand and said, “They must think a great deal of you, to bring you in special for something so important.”

Ethel saying things like that was another reason he preferred to eat with the other orderlies when he could. Anna claimed that she wasn’t taking the piss, but that kind of fawning was difficult to take any other way. “Well, I am the most experienced orderly they have. And the other senior nurse isn’t quite accustomed to Army work.” That was a bit of a euphemism—Thomas had recently learned that Nurse Whibley had, in fact, worked in an Army hospital during the South African war; unfortunately, the intervening decades of private-duty work hadn’t exactly helped her to keep up-to-date with the latest advances. 

O’Brien said, in her butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth voice, “And I suppose they wouldn’t entrust something so complicated to a mere VAD girl.”

Thomas sighed inwardly. “No, Miss O’Brien, as a matter of fact, they would not.” VAD girls got about as much medical training as orderlies did, before starting out, but none of the ones at their hospital had much experience on wards yet. “The young ladies of the Voluntary Aid Detachment might work on the complicated cases under supervision, as might the less experienced orderlies, but for night duty, they want someone who knows his way around an abdominal wound.”

“Under whose supervision, I wonder?” Miss O’Brien asked.

Thomas stared at her. Would he really have fallen into such an obvious trap before? More people were coming in to tea now, and it was plain that she wanted him to say something that would sound like he was putting himself above Lady Sybil. Carefully, he said, “Nurse Crawley, senior, supervises the nurses. I help out with showing the other orderlies how to do things.” In fact, the other orderlies now treated him as though he were the corporal of their section—which he would be, if he were actually assigned to the hospital. He added, “The Army always has nurses under the authority of another woman, a Ward Sister or a Matron, who reports to the Medical Officer. Prevents any appearance of impropriety.”

There. That firmly established that Sister Crawley was in charge of matters of propriety regarding Lady Sybil—and if O’Brien made any further insinuations, it would be a member of the family whom she was criticizing. 

“That sounds very sensible,” said Mrs. Patmore, who had arrived just now with a plate of cold meat. Then she added, “What are you doing here at this hour?”, which required Thomas to explain _again_.

Daisy returned with a loaf of bread just as he was finishing up. “Shall I make you some sandwiches to take with you? Since you’ll be missing dinner?”

Thomas had, in fact, been thinking of going into the kitchen to see what he could get his hands on before leaving for the hospital. “If you would,” he said. “And if Mrs. Patmore doesn’t mind.”

“It’s no trouble,” Daisy said.

Mrs. Patmore added, “Make them up after we’ve cleared the tea, and before we start on the dinner. I don’t want you knocking about making sandwiches at the busiest time of the day.” 

They finished laying the tea, and Carson and Mrs. Hughes came in. When they’d all stood up, and before sitting down, Carson looked at Thomas and said accusingly, “What are _you_ doing here?”

Thomas took a deep breath, preparing to explain it a fourth time, but Anna jumped in, saying, “They asked him to do night duty tonight, so he’s come back for a meal and a rest beforehand.”

Carson huffed, and finally sat down, allowing the rest of them to sit down and start filling their plates.

When the clamor had died down, Anna turned to Bates and said, “Would you go and wake Thomas up, when it’s time for him to go back to the hospital?”

Thomas was glad she’d done the asking—he’d not have minded if it was William, but he’d be busy getting ready for the upstairs dinner at that time. “Just after you dress his lordship for dinner,” he added. 

“I suppose,” said Bates. 

“Everyone else will be busy with the dinner,” Thomas explained. “And I can’t be late.”

O’Brien added, “It’s very important. A man could die, if Thomas isn’t there to _clean his wound_.”

Thomas hadn’t said that, though there was some truth in it. “More likely, Mrs. Crawley would stay to do it, and be late for her speaking engagement.” 

“I won’t forget,” Bates said. 

It wasn’t him forgetting that Thomas was worried about, exactly. “If they put me on night duty regularly, I’ll get an alarm clock.” 

“You won’t be here too much longer, will you?” William asked. 

Thomas was trying not to think about that. “My medical panel’s in about a month, yes,” he said. He did think he had a good chance of it coming out right, but he was no closer to figuring out what he’d do if it didn’t. “I won’t know when exactly, until I get my orders for it.” It was probably a good idea to get that out there—if he was still here two months to the day after he’d arrived, he’d probably have to explain _that_ five hundred times, too. 

“I wish they’d send me _my_ orders,” William said. 

_No you don’t_ , Thomas thought, but said instead, “If you’re lucky, maybe it’ll be over before you get them.” In fact, Thomas wasn’t sure why William hadn’t been called up yet, or Branson for that matter. There weren’t many men their age left in the village; as far as Thomas had seen, it was just them, a few farmworkers who were probably classified as “essential,” and the slow boy who delivered for the butcher shop. 

“I want to do my bit,” William said. Thomas scoffed, involuntarily, and William added, “I mean it. I believe in this war, and what we’re fighting for. I’d be sorry not to be a part of it.”

Irritated, Thomas said, “And what is that? What are we fighting for?”

William opened his mouth, then closed it again. 

“You believe in it, but you don’t even understand it. All right.” Now, Thomas noticed, everyone—including Anna—had stopped eating to look at him. “Shall I tell you? When you get your wish, and they drop you in a trench, you’ll soon find out that you’re fighting to keep yourself and your mates alive another day. And to keep the lice out of your clothes, and the rats out of your rations. If you’re so keen to find out what it’s like, you should come down to the hospital when a convoy’s due, and have a look.” He could have said more, but they were at the table, and there were ladies present.

“Perhaps I will,” William said. 

“You do that,” Thomas said. “And bear in mind, these are officers—you can’t expect half as much consideration when it’s your turn.”

With that, Mrs. Hughes determinedly turned the conversation to plans for Christmas, and how nice it would be if Mr. Matthew—who was in England on a training course—was able to get away for a day or two.

#

“I don’t know why he has to give _me_ a hard time,” William said to Anna. Tea had finished a bit ago, and Thomas had gone off to bed, and most of the others off to their work. Now it was just her, William, and Miss O’Brien, to whom William cast a sidelong glance down the table, where she sat unpicking a bit of lace. 

He’d seen enough to realize that it was she who had been antagonizing Thomas, Anna supposed. If she wasn’t sitting right there, Anna would have laid the blame solidly on her, but instead, she said, “Maybe don’t mention wanting to go to the war, around him.” 

“ _He_ wants to go back to France,” William pointed out. “He talks about it often enough.” 

Thomas would not, Anna knew, thank her for explaining that he wanted to go back because he felt more accepted there than he did here. “That’s a bit different—for him, it isn’t about the war in general. He wants to be back with his comrades. Mr. Bates has said that you get very attached, to the people you go through an experience like that with.” 

Down the table, Miss O’Brien scoffed. Anna expected an insinuation about the nature of Thomas’s attachment to his war chums—though why she’d bother, without an appreciative audience, Anna wasn’t sure—but instead she said, “Do they want _him_ back as much, I wonder?”

“I expect so,” Anna said, puzzled as to what Miss O’Brien could be getting at. Something unpleasant, certainly. “He gets letters from them.”

“He got letters from here, too,” she pointed out. “I expect they feel sorry for him, just as we all did when we heard he was shot.”

That was true, but….

Miss O’Brien continued, “It’s a bit strange, when you think about it, how he came to be shot. What _was_ he doing at the Front at the most dangerous hour of the entire war?”

“Collecting wounded,” Anna said flatly. “That was his job.”

“Well, yes, but isn’t that surprising, as he’s meant to be such a medical expert now? I wonder that he wasn’t behind the lines treating patients, instead of bringing them in, that’s all.”

Anna hadn’t thought about that. Thomas _did_ like to seem important; it wouldn’t be out of character for him to have exaggerated his expertise. Still, she didn’t know why Miss O’Brien would try to make an issue out of it—they were all used to Thomas’s ways. Except for Ethel, but Miss O’Brien disliked her, too. 

Miss O’Brien continued, “As a matter of fact, didn’t he tell us, before he left, that they put men on more dangerous duty if they were in some sort of trouble?”

He _had_ said that, hadn’t he? Anna had forgotten all about it—but it was the sort of detail Miss O’Brien would file away in case it could be useful later. “That’s a dreadful thing to do.” 

“Yes,” Miss O’Brien said, her expression suddenly very far away. “Yes, it is.”

And then she turned her attention back to the lace.

#

“Corporal Barrow?” Nurse Fairchild said, approaching him with a patient chart. It was a few hours into the night shift, and they were doing a round of temperatures and pulses, on the newly-arrived and otherwise delicate patients. 

“Yes?” Thomas asked, noting Captain Prescott’s temperature reading—normal—on his chart.

“I’ve just done Lieutenant Turnbull’s temperature, and it’s a bit elevated,” she explained, holding out the chart.

Thomas took it. The temperature was more than a _bit_ elevated—it had been a bit elevated in the afternoon, and had risen at each check since then. “Have you checked his wounds?” 

Nurse Fairchild hesitated. “There’s nothing showing through the dressings, and Nurse Whibley said not to disturb them.” 

Thomas sighed inwardly. Those _were_ Nurse Whibley’s initials next to the last few temperature readings. 

In the South African war—Thomas knew from Corporal Jessop and the Wardmaster—it had been thought best for a wound to be disinfected once, well-wrapped with a sterile dressing, and left alone. Removing the dressing, if it wasn’t visibly soiled, was thought to do more harm than good, by exposing the wound to germs. And that method _had_ usually worked—in South Africa. 

The trouble was that the wounds sustained in the trenches of France and Belgium were much dirtier to begin with. Anything that had been in the trenches for any length of time—including the enemy’s ammunition and the man’s own clothing—harbored millions of germs, which the bullet or shrapnel carried deep into the wound. A single round of disinfection was never enough to get them all, so keeping the wound covered only trapped them inside. 

Major Clarkson explained this to Nurse Whibley at least once a week, and she claimed to understand perfectly, but remained leery of the modern practice of frequent dressing-changes, and if not watched would delay or even skip them altogether. “Nurse Whibley,” Thomas said, “is not precisely _au courant_ with the latest developments in wound care. Best to have a look.”

Thomas finished up with Captain Prescott, and then joined Nurse Fairchild at Lieutenant Turnbull’s bedside. He was awake, and telling her that his arm was “Awfully sore.” 

Lieutenant Turnbull, another of the day’s new arrivals, had caught a spray of shrapnel along his right side. None of the wounds were particularly large or deep, but there were a lot of them, encompassing his arm, torso, buttock, and thigh. Nurse Fairchild was cutting away the gauze that secured the dressings on his side. 

“Let’s look at the arm next, then,” Thomas said. “These look all right, but I’d clean them before dressing them again.” 

Lieutenant Turnbull winced a bit as Nurse Fairchild swabbed the torso wounds with antiseptic, and then a lot more as she peeled back the dressing from his arm. “That really does smart,” he said. 

After checking his chart to see when he’d been medicated last, Thomas said, “You can have a bit of morphine if you’d like, sir.” 

“Oh, I don’t think it’s as bad as all that,” Turnbull said. “A cigarette, maybe?”

“Of course.” The other orderly on duty, Private Dixon, was doing a dressing change of his own, so Thomas gave the Lieutenant one of his own cigarettes, rather than going to get some from the hospital supply. 

“Private stock, there, corporal?” Turnbull asked, accepting it.

“Don’t tell,” Thomas said. “Or everyone will want them.”

“Could you hold that light a little bit closer?” Nurse Fairchild requested. 

Thomas did so, and saw that the wound on Turnbull’s biceps was red and swollen—definitely developing an infection, but not _too_ bad, yet. It was a little surprising that his temperature was as high as it was. “We’ll want to clean that out thoroughly, and have the Major look at it in the morning,” he said. 

Lieutenant Turnbull coughed a little and said, “It’s actually the one lower down that really hurts.” 

The other wound was a couple of inches above the wrist—small, but Thomas had thought, when he first saw it, that it was likely to prove more trouble than all the rest, down the road a bit, when it came time to find out how much use he had of the hand. 

He’d been right about it being trouble, but for the wrong reason. Even before Nurse Fairchild had removed the last layer of the dressing, a gangrenous stench wafted up from it, and when the wound was finally exposed, Thomas could see not just inflammation and pus, but the telltale streaks of redness that indicated the infection spreading through the blood vessels. 

Nurse Fairchild drew back a little, giving Thomas a startled look. “Oh!”

“It’s not that bad, is it?” Turnbull asked. It was obvious he was making an effort to keep his tone light.

“It’s not good,” Thomas said, tactfully. “You might want to re-think that morphine, sir. It’s going to hurt quite a bit when we clean it.” 

“Well, if you insist,” Turnbull said, with a hint of gratitude. 

“I do think it would be best, sir.” 

Thomas went to fetch it, and a moment later was joined at the drug cupboard by Nurse Fairchild. “That’s rather bad, isn’t it?”

Thomas nodded. “It’s bad, and it’s come on fast—I saw it earlier today, and it wasn’t like that.” He waved over Dixon, who had finished his dressing change, and said, “You’ll need to go and fetch Major Clarkson.”

He nodded. “Is it the abdominal case?”

“No—Turnbull. Right arm, shrapnel, gangrene.” If it was the abdominal case, there wouldn’t be much for a medical officer to do. Dixon nodded again and dashed off, and Thomas continued, to Fairchild, “The main thing is to keep him calm until the morphine’s taken a bit of the edge off. Let’s help him into the consulting room, and give him an injection there.” The consulting room was close enough to the surgery that Dixon and Fairchild could manage getting him in there on a stretcher, if need be. Looking at Fairchild to see if she understood, he said, “We’re taking him to the consulting room so that we can have good light, to clean the wound out thoroughly, without waking everyone else up. That’s all.”

She nodded uncertainly. 

No, she didn’t understand. “If he asks whether we’re getting ready to amputate, we say that’s for the doctor to decide. But we do our best not to give him a reason to ask.”

Now she understood. “Do you think he is? Going to amputate, I mean?”

Thomas shrugged his good shoulder. “He might try debriding it first, see if there’s any improvement.” Thomas didn’t think it was likely, not with the infection as bad as it was.

They went back to Turnbull and got him into his clothes, giving him the official story about taking him into the consulting room for the light. He looked suspicious, but didn’t ask any inconvenient questions. Once he was settled on the examination couch and had had his injection, they did, in fact, start cleaning the wound, which they were doing when Major Clarkson arrived. 

He was sleep-rumpled, with his jacket unbuttoned and his necktie off. Lieutenant Turnbull was woozy but conscious, and the Major did a better job of concealing his reaction to the situation than Nurse Fairchild had, saying only, “That does look like a bit of infection in there,” before stepping away from the patient and gesturing to the two of them.

They joined him at the other end of the room, where he was exchanging his uniform jacket for a white coat. “I hope we were right to send for you, Doctor,” Nurse Fairchild said. 

“You were,” Major Clarkson said grimly. “When was the dressing last changed?”

“Not long after the convoy arrived, sir,” Thomas said. “I didn’t notice anything amiss then.”

“Who took over the case after you?”

Neither of them answered. Nurses didn’t drop their mates in the shit, either. “Shall I bring you the chart, sir?” Thomas suggested. 

“Yes.”

So Thomas went and got it—they’d left it at his bed in the ward—and then held it where Major Clarkson could see it as he was washing his hands. 

“Do I need to ask why Nurse Fairchild didn’t check the wounds the first time she took his temperature?” Major Clarkson asked. 

“Probably not, sir.” 

He sighed.

Once the Major had examined the wound, and said a few vaguely reassuring things to Turnbull—who was still somewhat conscious—he called Thomas, Dixon, and Fairchild into his office. “Corporal, have you worked in theater before?”

“No, sir. Bit of surgical prep, but that’s all.” 

He nodded. “Dixon, go and fetch Mr. Fielding,” who was the anesthetist, “and Nurse Crawley—senior, of course.”

Dixon said, “Yes, sir,” but looked a bit hesitant.

Guessing that it was over the idea of waking up a lady in the middle of the night, Thomas said, “It’s all right—you’ll get her butler, a man named Molesley. Just tell him she’s needed at the hospital, and he’ll take it from there.” 

Major Clarkson added, “Once you’ve done that, you can go back to your duties on the ward. Nurse Fairchild, stay with Lieutenant Turnbull until Nurse Crawley arrives, then you can go back to the ward as well. Barrow, start getting the operating theater ready. Mr. Fielding will tell you what else to do when he arrives.”

They all scattered to their various tasks. When the rest of the team arrived, Thomas was a little surprised to find himself ordered to join them in the operating theater, instead of being sent back to the ward. 

There was not, in fact, very much for him to _do_ during the operation, but given Major Clarkson’s question, it seemed plain enough that he was supposed to be paying attention to what Sister Crawley did—the main things seemed to be providing Major Clarkson with the instruments he needed, and taking away the ones he was finished with; positioning Turnbull’s arm the way Major Clarkson wanted it, and sopping up blood so that he could see where he was cutting. Mr. Fielding, in addition to administering the anesthesia, gave regular announcements of Turnbull’s pulse and respiration rates, as well as how long he had been under anesthesia. 

The operation certainly didn’t take long—maybe twenty minutes. Major Clarkson took the arm a few inches below the elbow, first cutting the skin and muscle with a scalpel, then applying a small saw to the bone. The latter made a sound that was sickeningly like and unlike the sound of a saw cutting through wood. It took Thomas some effort not to shudder.

He supposed that was another reason he was here—so he’d be used to it when the time came for him to actually assist. 

Once the bone was severed, and the arm placed into a tray—Sister Crawley handed it to Thomas, who was not at all sure where he was supposed to put it—Major Clarkson folded the muscle and skin over the stump and stitched it up, putting in a couple of drains for irrigation while he was at it. Once that was done, he stepped back and nodded to Mr. Fielding, who removed the mask from Turnbull’s face. 

The two gentlemen left, and Nurse Crawley told him, “Now we dress the wound, as usual—you can take that out to the incinerator later—and he goes back into the consulting room until he’s come out of the anesthesia.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” Thomas said, and set the arm aside. 

“You haven’t seen one of those done before, I take it?” she asked as they worked. 

“No. I’ve seen them before and after, but not during.”

She nodded. “It can be a bit disquieting.”

“Yes, ma’am. That’s…a good way of putting it.”

“Chest and abdominal surgeries are more complicated,” she went on, “but I find I’m more bothered by amputations. The moment where a limb goes from being a part of a person’s body to an object—and a fairly loathsome object, at that—is difficult to witness.”

Thomas nodded, making a vague sound of agreement. He wished she’d stop talking about it. 

“That hand might have written a love letter, or played a musical instrument, or held a newborn child,” Nurse Crawley continued, “and now it’s….”

“Meat,” Thomas blurted out, before he could think better of it. 

“Precisely,” she said. “‘For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.’” 

Thomas very carefully did not think about all the bodies he had known, which were now returning to dust. 

Fortunately, Sister Crawley allowed the subject to drop. “Now, I don’t think Lieutenant Turnbull realized he was going in for an amputation, did he?”

Thomas shook his head. “Not that I know of. I think he had an idea something’d gone wrong, but it’ll be a shock when he comes round.” 

“I’ll sit with him,” she said. “Unless you’d rather do it, and I see to Captain Prescott’s next dressing change?”

“If it’s all the same, I’ll take Captain Prescott, ma’am,” Thomas said cautiously. “Comforting people when they’ve had bad news isn’t my best area.”

Sister Crawley smiled. “I’m rather good at it, so that’s what we’ll do.” She reached toward the roll of gauze, and he handed it to her. “That’s one of the difficult things about this work, isn’t it? Sometimes it helps to form a bond of sympathy with the patients, while at other times you must distance yourself so that you can do what needs to be done. Most people, I find, are better at one or the other.”

Thomas hadn’t really thought of it that way before, but there was something in it. He was certainly very good at distancing himself. “Yes, ma’am,” he said.

“For me, it’s rather easy to sympathize—I just think of my son, and of what their mothers would want me to do.” She smoothed the bandage over Turnbull’s stump. “But that does make other things more difficult.”

Things like watching them get bits hacked off, Thomas supposed. 

“So all in all,” she continued, “isn’t it lucky that we aren’t all alike? Nurse Whibley, for instance, is very good with helpless patients, feeding and washing and so on, and making it so they don’t feel humiliated.” She looked sadly at Turnbull’s stump, and Thomas knew it wasn’t coincidence that she was talking about Nurse Whibley just now. “And they do, you know. They feel it especially keenly when it’s one of the young women helping them, but also when it’s another man. I must do a better job, as Acting Ward Sister, of putting her where she can do the most good.” 

The comparison would surely have shocked either of them, but at that moment, Sister Crawley reminded Thomas strongly of the Wardmaster. He’d not have put it that way; he’d have said something like _I knew she was fucking shit at wound care, and I shouldn’t have put her where she could cost a man his arm to begin with_ , and then poured himself a drink. But it was the same sort of thing, really. So he nodded and said, “Yes, ma’am. Play to her strengths, like.”

“Precisely. I think we’re finished here—could you ask Private Dixon to come and help me move Lieutenant Turnbull into the consulting room?”

So Thomas found Dixon and sent him in, then began gathering up the supplies for Captain Prescott’s dressing change. 

Naturally, given that Thomas had just mentioned how he wasn’t very good at comforting people, it was during this dressing change that Captain Prescott began to wake up. He started stirring a little as Thomas removed the dressings from his wound, and when Thomas had just started the first round of irrigation, said, “Wha’s that?”

“Just cleaning your wound, sir,” Thomas said, as reassuringly as he could.

“Feels awfully queer.” He had a funny accent, hard to place. 

“Yes, sir, I imagine it does.” 

Captain Prescott then craned his neck to look down at his stomach. 

“It’s best if you lie flat, sir,” Thomas said.

“Huh,” Prescott said, subsiding back onto the pillow, closing his eyes. “’s this England?”

“Yes, sir,” Thomas said. The antiseptic solution was starting to drain out now, and looked clear. “Yorkshire.” 

“Always wanted to see England. Mother country.”

Australian, that was what the accent must be. “Well, now’s your chance, sir.” He was trying to sound cheerful, but even in his own ears it rang false.

Prescott opened one eye then, and fixed Thomas with a penetrating look. He didn’t actually say _Yeah, right_ , but he didn’t have to.

Sister Crawley imagined her son, when she needed to connect with a patient. Thomas didn’t even have to reach that far—he knew exactly what it was like to think you were dying, and have everybody pretend you weren’t. 

Of course, he actually _hadn’t_ been dying. Captain Prescott wasn’t dying right this minute, either, but he was a long way from being out of danger—although he might have more of a hope than he thought he did. 

Thomas was still trying to sort out what to say when Major Clarkson came round. “Corporal,” he said, picking up Prescott’s chart and scanning it. 

Prescott had his eyes closed again, but Thomas had a feeling he was still awake, and so said, “He’s alert, sir,” before Major Clarkson could say anything he might not want the patient to hear. “First time since he’s been here, that I know of.” 

“Good,” Major Clarkson said, bending down toward the patient. “Captain Prescott? How are you feeling?”

“Like somebody’s torn a fucking hole in my stomach,” Prescott said. “Pardon my language.”

“Well, yes,” Major Clarkson murmured. He came around to the side of the bed where Thomas was working, and Thomas shifted to one side to give him a better view of the wound. “That’s coming along nicely,” he said. “How’s the solution look?”

It was finished draining, so Thomas held the jar up for him to see. “Clear,” he reported. “There were some traces of blood last time, but even fainter than in the afternoon.”

“Excellent,” Major Clarkson said. To Prescott, he added, “You’re in good hands here, Captain.” And to Thomas, “You can give him a tenth of a grain of morphine when you’ve finished with that.”

“Yes, sir.”

Captain Prescott said, “Before you—” but Major Clarkson had already walked away.

“He’s left, sir,” Thomas said. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

“Yeah,” said Prescott. “Before you dope me up again, you can take down a message for my wife.”

“Of course, sir,” Thomas said, relieved that it was that simple. “Once I’ve finished with your wound, I’ll get a pen and paper.”

“And before that, you can give me the straight shit. Am I telling her goodbye?”

Damn. “Well, sir, I would say the straight shit is…we don’t know.” Captain Prescott opened his eye again to give Thomas another skeptical look. “I expect you know that abdominal wounds are always dangerous. But some men beat the odds. It’s too soon to tell whether you’ll be one of them, but…so far, so good.” 

“I’ve got a chance, you mean?”

“Yes, sir.” He hesitated, thinking of Anna and Mrs. Hughes, worrying over him when all they knew was that he’d been wounded. And of himself, in the days between the newspaper reports about the _Albion_ and the telegram. “But these things can change course quickly. What I would suggest is that we write one message to send now, and another that we’ll put aside. That way, your wife isn’t kept waiting for news, but if your condition worsens and there isn’t time to write again, you’ll have said what you want to say.”

“All right,” Prescott said. “Let’s do that.” 

So, after irrigating the wound again and re-dressing it, Thomas fetched writing materials and sat down again by Prescott’s bed. 

Prescott began the letter with a few things about how much he loved his wife and their child, who evidently had been born after he shipped out. Thomas was considering whether to hint that this might not be the information for which she was most anxiously waiting, when Prescott dictated, “But I suppose you want to know about my wound. It’s a pretty bad one, Marge.” He paused for Thomas to catch up writing. “I was shot in the stomach, and the orderly says that’s always—what did you say it always was?”

“Dangerous, sir,” Thomas said. “But we might put ‘cause for concern.’”

“Yeah, put that.” He resumed dictating, “But it’s not doing too badly so far, and I might be one of the lucky ones.”

He shut his eyes, and after a moment, Thomas asked, “Is there anything else, sir?”

“Yeah. Ah…They have me in a hospital in—where did you say this was?”

“Yorkshire.”

“Yorkshire, England. Everyone’s real nice, and they’re taking very good care of me.” He took a deep breath and continued, “It’s beautiful here, everything’s so pretty and green, you wouldn’t believe it.”

Yorkshire was more gold than green at this time of year, but Thomas wrote it. 

“I’ll write again when I can, and if I can’t….”

After waiting a moment for him to finish the thought, Thomas said, “I can write to her, if there’s bad news. Shall I say that?”

“Yeah, say that.”

So Thomas wrote, “the orderly here will write instead.” 

Prescott continued, “So keep your chin up, dearest, and hope for the best. Love, Peter.”

Thomas’s hand shook on the final word. “Here,” he said. “I’ll hold it so you can sign.” 

Prescott signed his name, and drew a little heart. His hand was shaking, too. 

“We can write the second one later, if you’d like, sir,” he suggested. 

“No,” he said. “Better keep on.” 

The second message was longer than the first, with more of the love stuff, and a description of Captain Prescott’s home as he remembered it, and advice to his infant son. He was pale and sweating by the time he finished it—more than ready for his morphine injection. 

Thomas was pretty relieved to give it to him, too. There was nothing urgently demanding his attention when he finished, so he stepped outside for a cigarette. The sky was beginning to lighten in the east—only a couple of hours now until the day shift came on. 

He was still smoking it when Sister Crawley came outside. He started to get up, but she quickly said, “As you were, Corporal,” and so he sat back down again. Carson wasn’t likely to come walking by and see, not at this hour. 

She updated him on Lieutenant Turnbull—he’d come round enough to receive the news, but hadn’t really taken it in, she said, before they’d dosed him with morphine again and put him back to bed. “We’ll be taking his temperature and checking the wound every hour, for the time being.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And how is Captain Prescott?”

“Still holding steady,” Thomas said. “He came round, and had me take down a letter to his wife.”

“Good,” she said. “Ah—to be sent now, or held until….?”

“One of each.” 

“Good,” she repeated. “I’m glad I caught you here, because we should discuss the schedule for the rest of the day. I do think one of us ought to plan on taking night duty again tonight.”

Thomas agreed, and they decided that it made the most sense for him to take it, and for her to take the day shift. He’d stay on a couple of extra hours, so that she could go home and get a bit more rest before coming in at mid-morning, instead of first thing.

“If you don’t mind,” she added. “It’s not ideal, but I think it’s the best we can do.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Sounds fair.”

After a bit of discussion of duty assignments for the morning, she headed for home, and Thomas went back in to work. The rest of the night shift was, thankfully, free of any new crises, although Lieutenant Turnbull’s temperature did not come down. 

There was also no objection, when the other orderlies and nurses repo rted in, to Thomas’s giving out their duty assignments, in the Acting Ward Sister’s absence—though he did check over his shoulder for Mr. Carson, or anyone else from the house, before informing the younger Nurse Crawley that she, along with the other VAD nurse and two orderlies, would handle the first round of bedpans. 

It was when that chore was just about finished that the trouble started. Nurse Crawley stormed up to him and informed him, “Lieutenant Turnbull had his arm amputated during the night.”

“Yes,” Thomas said. _I was here_. “That was the emergency.” He’d explained to everyone that Nurse Crawley, senior, was coming in late because there had been an emergency and she’d worked part of the night shift as well. “The wound on his arm was infected, so we called Major Clarkson in, and he decided on an immediate amputation.”

“I noticed his temperature was rising last evening,” Nurse Crawley said, in a tone of high dudgeon. “I wanted to check his wounds, but Nurse Whibley told me not to.”

“Yes,” Thomas said. “She left Nurse Fairchild with the same instructions.” 

“If I had, there might have been something more we could do,” she said. “Isn’t that right?”

Thomas hesitated. She wasn’t wrong, but it wasn’t quite that simple, either. “Possibly. There’s no way to know.”

“So it’s Nurse Whibley’s fault. She refuses to accept the modern methods, and now this is the result!”

She almost certainly didn’t realize the position she was putting him in, Thomas knew. Nurse Whibley, whatever her faults, was a fully-qualified nurse, and they were an orderly and a VAD girl. It wasn’t their place to criticize her. 

But of course, it had never not been Lady Sybil’s place to do anything. Carefully, Thomas said, “The Acting Ward Sister is…aware of the problem. We discussed it a bit.”

“And what’s she going to do about it?”

“For now, she’s assigned Nurse Whibley to feeding and blanket baths, which are well within her expertise.”

“That’s not good enough,” Nurse Crawley said. “If she’s endangering patients, she shouldn’t be here.”

“That’s for the Chief Medical Officer and the Ward Sister to decide,” Thomas reminded her. And it wasn’t as though there were an unlimited number of nurses to pick from—it might be Nurse Whibley or nothing. That wasn’t something her life as Lady Sybil had given her any way to understand, either. “You might talk to the senior Nurse Crawley, when she comes in,” he suggested. She was certainly more qualified to explain why the younger Nurse Crawley was unlikely to get her way. “She’ll likely be able to tell you more about what’s been decided and why.”

Nurse Crawley nodded, composing herself. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.” She changed the subject. “Will you show me how to do the dressing changes for Captain Prescott?”

Thomas hesitated—they’d never precisely discussed whether he was meant to help with training the young ladies. They hadn’t even discussed whether he’d help train the orderlies; he’d just started doing it. But he’d already told her “no” once; doing so again might press his luck. “If you’re caught up with the duties the Ward Sister assigned to you, you can watch.”

“I will be!” she said eagerly. “When’s the next one?”

“About an hour,” Thomas said, and she hurried off to get on with the morning chores. 

Sure enough, Nurse Crawley popped up at his elbow while he was getting the supplies for the dressing change. “He came round for a bit, while I was doing one of these last night,” Thomas said. “He probably won’t this time—he wore himself out—but if he does, just be matter-of-fact. He knows his condition’s serious, and he doesn’t want a lot of flannel.”

She nodded, an expectant look on her face.

“But don’t be too gloomy, either. We’re cautiously optimistic.” 

“I understand.”

“But don’t bring it up unless he does.”

“I have worked with serious cases before,” she pointed out. 

Thomas had learned a bit, from Jessop and the Wardmaster, about dealing with young officers who were a little too inclined to throw their weight around, but not about ones who were just a little too keen. If she were a man, the thing to say would be _yes, sir_ , so he went with, “Yes, nurse.”

She gave him a sharp look, but didn’t object.

Despite Thomas’s misgivings, once he started the procedure, it seemed natural enough to talk through the procedure the same way he would if he were showing it to another orderly. And Nurse Crawley proved an apt student, answering his questions thoughtfully and not—as he’d feared—insisting on taking over the procedure herself. If she had, he’d have _had_ to find a way to say no.

It was, he reflected a while later, as he started the walk up to the house, probably the longest conversation he’d ever had with one of the family. Definitely the longest if you weren’t counting the time he’d shouted at his lordship in his dressing room and then cried—which Thomas would most certainly prefer not to count. 

Thomas rounded a curve in the drive, and, as if summoned out of the ether by Thomas’s thoughts, his lordship appeared. Fortunately, he was far enough away that Thomas could quickly dodge to the right side of the path, and so correctly salute with his right hand. 

His lordship—Colonel Grantham—stopped a short distance from him and returned the salute. That was a mercy, in a way—if they ignored you, you had to keep standing there until you decided it was safe to stop saluting—but it certainly did look as though Thomas might have to actually speak to him.

Did he know Thomas was here? He had to. Didn’t he?

“Corporal,” he said, with a nod. 

He didn’t sound particularly surprised—or outraged—so he must have known. “Colonel.” Maybe he’d leave it at that. 

Thomas wasn’t that lucky. “Good. Her ladyship and I were both sorry to hear you’d been wounded.”

“Thank you—” Was it _my lord_ or _sir_ , when they were both in uniform? “—sir.” 

Colonel Grantham did not actually explode, so Thomas supposed he’d got it right. “I think this is the first I’ve seen you since you’ve been back.”

What the fuck was he supposed to say to that? Why _would_ he have seen him? It wasn’t as though he was a proper guest. Or was he hinting that Thomas didn’t seem to be making himself useful at the house, as he’d promised he would when he asked to stay? That had to be it. “Yes, sir. I’ve been helping out at the hospital. Mr. Carson didn’t think it right that I work in the house.”

“No,” said his lordship. “It wouldn’t quite look right, would it?” 

What did he mean by _that_? 

Before Thomas could ask—or even think about whether there was some way he _could_ ask—Colonel Grantham changed the subject. “How are things at the hospital?”

“Well enough, sir. We had a bit of an emergency last night, with a patient, but he seems to be on the mend.” That wasn’t quite true, but it wasn’t as though he could say _we cut off a man’s arm, and he still might die_. 

“Good. And I suppose you see Lady Sybil, when she’s on duty?”

 _Oh_. This was about not becoming too familiar with Lady Sybil, was it? That wasn’t _too_ excruciating—particularly since his lordship had to know that Thomas was the last person to “fraternize” with her in the euphemistic sense. “In passing, sir,” he said. “The young ladies are honorary officers, you know. I mostly work with the other enlisted men.”

“Of course. But you must know the sort of things she’s doing.”

After examining the question from all angles, Thomas admitted, “Yes, sir.”

“And it is…suitable? For a young lady?”

Perhaps this wasn’t about Thomas at all. Perhaps it was about Lady Sybil doing things like giving men baths, and seeing them naked. Thomas was fairly sure that, presented with a list of a VAD’s duties, Lord Grantham would _not_ find it entirely suitable—but fortunately, it wasn’t his place to have an opinion about that. “The Acting Ward Sister Crawley—Mrs. Crawley, that is—has charge of the young ladies. What’s suitable for them to do, and what should be left to the men.” There, that was absolutely true, but implied something more reassuring than the unvarnished facts.

“I see. I suppose that’s the usual arrangement?”

“Yes, sir. Larger hospitals have a Matron, over the Ward Sisters, but there are only a few nurses here.”

Colonel Grantham nodded. “Thank you. I won’t keep you.”

After another exchange of salutes, they parted ways—thank God. 

#

“Is everyone finished with this?” Daisy asked and, without pausing for an answer, put the last of the cold veal-and-ham pie they’d had for the servants’ tea onto a plate. 

“Doesn’t Mrs. Patmore keep something for you in the kitchen?” Ethel asked. 

“I’m putting it aside for Thomas,” Daisy explained. “So he can eat something before he goes down to the hospital. He’s on night duty again, you know.”

They did all know that—he’d made an appearance at lunch, before going up to bed for the afternoon—but Miss O’Brien said, “I’m surprised they asked him to again, after last night.”

Anna knew better than to give her the satisfaction of asking, but unfortunately, William didn’t. “What happened last night?” he asked.

“One of the orderlies had to go running for poor Mrs. Crawley, in the middle of the night,” she said. “I heard it from Mr. Molesley.”

“Why?” Daisy asked.

“He didn’t say,” Miss O’Brien answered, primly—as though she wouldn’t have pumped him for as much information as he had to give. “Only that there was an emergency. One which was beyond Thomas’s abilities, evidently.”

“It is a hospital,” Mrs. Hughes pointed out. “I expect emergencies aren’t uncommon.”

“It’s surprising, is all I’m saying,” Miss O’Brien replied. “After he took such pains to make sure we knew how they rely on him there.”

That wasn’t entirely fair, but Anna wasn’t quite sure how to say so. For one thing, saying anything at all would just give Miss O’Brien the opportunity to make more insinuating remarks.

After a moment, Mr. Carson said, “Well. We all have work to be doing, don’t we?”

Anna hoped to be able to ask Thomas just what had really happened at the hospital the night before, but he hadn’t come down yet when the dressing gong rang, and by the she came back down from dressing Lady Mary and Lady Edith—Lady Sybil hadn’t returned from the hospital yet—he’d already left. 

But she did end up hearing about it from Lady Sybil, who came home when the rest of the family were halfway through dinner. She went straight up to her room, and Mr. Carson instructed Anna to take a tray up to her. 

When she took the tray up, Lady Sybil had already changed into her dressing gown, and was sitting at the dressing table, taking her hair down. “Oh, good,” she said, clearing a place on the dressing table for the tray. “I’m famished.”

“I shouldn’t wonder,” Anna said. “Putting in such a long day.” 

“I hope Mama isn’t cross that I was late,” Lady Sybil said, picking up her fork. “I was speaking with of the patients. He had his arm amputated early this morning.”

Anna had the impression that amputations weren’t unusual in a military hospital, but said, “How dreadful,” as she collected Lady Sybil’s nursing uniform, which she’d left neatly folded on a chair. She hoped that Lady Sybil would say more, and she wasn’t disappointed.

“It is. He’s a young lieutenant, just my age. His right arm. But the most dreadful thing about it is that it needn’t have happened, if his wound had been looked after properly.”

Was Miss O’Brien actually _right_? “Really, my lady?” she said encouragingly.

“The wound became infected, so Dr. Clarkson had to amputate to prevent it from spreading,” Lady Sybil explained. “But if we’d spotted the infection sooner, we’d have been able to at least _try_ to save his arm. His dressing hadn’t been changed for nearly twelve hours.”

Oh, dear. Dressing changes were just what Thomas had been talking about. “I’m sure everyone did their best, my lady,” she suggested. 

“Well, _some_ of us did,” Lady Sybil said, tartly. 

#

“…and Captain Prescott is still holding steady, you’ll be glad to hear,” Sister Crawley said. “We’ll continue to irrigate the wound every two hours, and he’s to have intravenous fluids at about five AM.”

“Very good, ma’am.” She was doing the handover to the evening shift, briefing him on all of the cases requiring special attention. “What about Lieutenant Turnbull?” She hadn’t mentioned him yet, though Thomas had noticed on the way in that his bed was still occupied. He’d at least lived through the day.

“He isn’t doing so well, I’m afraid,” she said, with a sigh. “His temperature is still quite elevated, and I don’t like the looks of the second arm wound, or the stump, for that matter.” 

“I see.”

“Nurse Fairchild will monitor his temperature hourly throughout the night. We just did his dressing change together, so she knows how to do it and what to look for, but I’d like you to look in while she does it.”

Thomas nodded. Hourly checks meant they were very concerned about Lieutenant Turnbull. “Yes, ma’am.” He hesitated. “Do you know if they’re thinking of doing another amputation?” If the MOs thought the infection might still be confined to the arm, they might try amputating further up. If they _weren’t_ considering that option, and the case was as serious as Sister Crawley’s instructions implied, that would mean the infection was systemic and amputating wouldn’t do any good. 

“Yes, Major Clarkson said that if there’s no improvement by morning, they may operate again. If his condition worsens….” She trailed off. “Captain Wren-Lewis is the medical officer on call tonight,” she added. “Private Dixon knows where he’s billeted.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

After that, there were a few more cases for her to bring him up-to-date on, and a final round of bedpans for the day-shift orderlies to finish up, and then the night watch began. 

It was a busy shift. With three of them on night duty, each was responsible for about 30 to 40 patients. Fortunately, most of them slept through the night without requiring anything. Last night, Thomas’s patients, apart from Captain Prescott, had mostly been in that category. Now that Nurse Fairchild was doing hourly checks on Lieutenant Turnbull, the cases had been reshuffled, with her taking a few of Thomas’s easy patients and him taking a few of her needier ones. For instance, last night he’d had a dozen temperatures and pulses to check at mid-shift; now he had eighteen, and three more who needed to be checked twice. Instead of six patients getting pills and two getting injections, he had ten pills and four injections. Added to that were the ones who weren’t scheduled for anything, but woke up and wanted something—drinks of water, bedpans, cigarettes. 

Pretty much the only time he got to sit down was when he was doing Captain Prescott’s dressing changes. 

Lieutenant Turnbull, when Nurse Fairchild called him over for the dressing change, was pale and restless. “How’s his temperature?” Thomas asked.

“Between 103 and 104,” she said. “Sister Crawley said it’s been like that all day, and to send for the Captain if it reached 105.”

Thomas nodded. The temperature was high enough that any further increase could be dangerous. “Has he been conscious at all?”

“Not really. He’s been murmuring some, and moving about—like that,” she added, as Turnbull writhed in his sleep. 

Poor bastard. “Well, let’s see how it looks.” 

Nurse Fairchild removed the dressings from Turnbull’s arm. The stump was red and swollen, but not actually dripping. The upper-arm wound was more inflamed than when Thomas had seen it last, with a fair amount of pus. 

“It doesn’t smell quite as bad as last night,” she said hopefully. 

“No,” Thomas acknowledged. It certainly didn’t look good, though. “Has Nurse Crawley shown you how to do the irrigation on the stump?”

She nodded, and picked up the bulb syringe to introduce the antiseptic. When it drained back out, it was yellowish and cloudy. “That’s about how it looked last time,” Nurse Fairchild said. 

“All right,” Thomas said. “Second round should be clearer.”

It was, which meant that the treatment was doing some good—but Thomas doubted it would be enough. The fever suggested the infection had got into his blood, and it wasn’t as though they could disinfect _that_ —it would kill him before it killed the infection. 

Nurse Fairchild moved on to cleaning out the upper-arm wound, swabbing out the pus and saturating the area with antiseptic, and then to the other wounds on Turnbull’s torso. These, Thomas thought, looked a bit worse than they had the night before—not as septic as the arm was, but definitely a bit inflamed. “Did you look at these with Sister Crawley, too?” he asked.

She nodded. “Yes. She said these probably wouldn’t really need re-dressing, but that I should check them, and I might as well re-dress them while I was doing it.”

“How do they look, compared to this afternoon?”

She moved the light closer, and looked carefully. “About the same, I think. This one on his chest might be a bit redder.” She looked over at him. “Do you think we need to send for the doctor?”

“Not if there’s no major change since the afternoon.” The only thing the doctor could do that they couldn’t was amputate more of the arm, and if he thought that was indicated, he’d have done it before he went off-shift. “You generally call for an MO at night if the patient’s gone downhill. If he was already in bad shape when they left….” 

Nurse Fairchild nodded. “Yes, I see.”

Thomas waited to see if she’d say anything else, and when she didn’t, told her, “Clean the wounds out well, and keep doing his checks,” and went to check on his own patients.

When Thomas was doing Prescott’s last dressing change of the night, the Captain woke up. After watching Thomas for a moment, he said, “So I’m still here.”

“Yes, sir,” Thomas said. 

“How’s it look?”

“About the same—which is good news, in the circumstances. How does it feel?”

“About the same,” Prescott echoed. “Though now you mention it, I almost feel like I could eat.” 

“You’d have to talk to the medical officer about that, sir.” With an abdominal case, an interest in eating was a good sign—but introducing food into the damaged digestive organs was more likely than anything else to trigger an infection or hemorrhage. “I can give you a cigarette, if you like.” 

“All right,” Prescott said. 

“Better wait till I’m finished with this, though,” Thomas added. The second round of irrigation was still working its way through. “This stuff’s a bit flammable.”

Prescott huffed—it was almost a laugh. “Wouldn’t want to go up like a Christmas pudding,” he agreed. 

Now there was a mental image. “You’d likely have to drop it right in the wound,” Thomas said. “But let’s not risk it.”

The antiseptic solution finished draining, and Thomas started re-dressing the wound. “You posted that letter?” Prescott asked.

“Yes, sir.” 

“Good. Of course, by the time she reads it….”

Thomas wasn’t sure how long it took for a letter to get to Australia, but it seemed like it would have to take at least a couple of weeks—maybe longer. “Yes, sir. We’ll likely know more by then. For now, every day you get through without a change for the worse, your chances get a bit better.” 

The shift limped on. Close to dawn, one of Dixon’s patients had a nightmare—battle dream, by the sound of it—and his carrying-on woke up everyone around him, which resulted in a number of requests for bedpans, pain medication, and cigarettes. When they’d finally got them all settled down again, it was just about time for the day shift to come in, and make a start on the morning.

Thomas was not surprised to see Major Clarkson, Captain Wren-Lewis, and Sister Crawley gather around Lieutenant Turnbull’s bed shortly after they arrived; nor to see Nurse Fairchild and the other Nurse Crawley in whispered conference. He was a little surprised, however, when Nurse Crawley parted from her fellow VAD and made a bee-line for him. “Poor Lieutenant Turnbull isn’t doing any better, it seems,” she said.

“No,” Thomas agreed. 

She shook her head. “It’s such a waste,” she said, turning to give a look of dislike to Nurse Whibley, who was collecting bedpans from the sinkroom. 

“All of it’s a waste, Nurse Crawley,” he said. 

“Of course, but—” She clammed up at the sight of Sister Crawley approaching. 

“Haven’t you got something to be doing?” Sister Crawley asked her.

“Yes, Sister,” Nurse Crawley, and hurried off to do it. 

“We’re going to try another amputation,” Sister Crawley told him. “If you don’t need to go off-duty immediately, you can assist, along with me.”

Thomas was in no particular hurry to go up to the house—better if he got there once they were all through with breakfast and had scattered to the day’s tasks, as far as he was concerned. “Yes, ma’am.”

This time, Thomas did most of the assisting, while Sister Crawley hung back, occasionally pointing out to him which instrument it was that Captain Wren-Lewis was asking for. This operation took longer, as they were taking the arm off at the shoulder, and the anatomy was more complicated. Captain Wren-Lewis also debrided the chest wound and several others. The scarring, if Lieutenant Turnbull lived, was going to be horrendous—but that was the least of anyone’s worries right now. 

#

Returning downstairs midmorning, after seeing Lady Mary off to pay some calls, Anna found Thomas sitting in the servants’ hall, looking at a newspaper and eating a bit of breakfast that Daisy had put aside for him. 

“It seems we hardly see you, working at night,” she observed. 

“I expect some people like it that way,” Thomas said. 

He wasn’t wrong, but she did wish he’d pay more notice of those of them who _were_ glad to have him home, rather than dwelling on Miss O’Brien and Mr. Carson. 

He continued, “I’ll be doing it for at least the rest of the week. We’ve got a couple of difficult cases now.”

Anna nodded. She’d hesitated over whether to ask Thomas about what Miss O’Brien and Lady Sybil had mentioned, but that seemed the perfect opening. “Lady Sybil said a young Lieutenant had to have his arm amputated?”

Thomas gave a guilty start. “When did she—oh, you mean the first time.” He set down the toast he was eating. “Yes, she spoke to me about that, too. She’s taking it hard. She’ll likely be even more upset when she comes back—we amputated again this morning, further up, but I have my doubts it’ll do any good.”

“You mean he might….”

“Die? Yes.” He sounded matter-of-fact about it—almost horrifyingly so.

“Lady Sybil said….” Anna hesitated. “That it might not have been necessary, if the wound had been cared for properly.” She wondered if he’d deny it. 

Thomas nodded. “She thinks that. It might be true.” He shrugged his good shoulder and picked up his toast. 

Anna knew that Thomas could seem callous at times, but even for him, shrugging off the preventable death of a young man seemed a bit much. “And is that all you have to say about it?” she asked incredulously.

“What else is there to say?” He finished the toast and lit a cigarette. “It all came on very quickly—I checked the wound myself when he first arrived. It looked all right then; twelve hours later, he had a raging infection. Nurse Crawley’s of the opinion that if it had been checked earlier in the evening, there might have been more that could be done, and as I say, she could be right, but there’s no way to know. And patients often go a lot longer than twelve hours without having their wounds checked, especially when they’re being moved.” He reached up and rubbed his left shoulder, adding, “Mine certainly did.” 

Thomas didn’t often draw attention to his wound like that; Anna couldn’t help wondering if he was doing it now as a play for sympathy. “So you’re saying this is just routine?”

“Unfortunately, yes. Most of the men listed as ‘died of wounds’ actually die from infection. I understand why Nurse Crawley’s upset—he didn’t seem too badly off at all when he arrived; even before the first amputation, he was chatting with us and in good spirits.” He gave her a sidelong look. “And he’s a nice-looking bloke—or was, anyway. But if she asked my advice—which she hasn’t—I’d suggest she be a bit more circumspect about assigning blame. You might mention it if she asks you—or comes close to asking you.”

Anna’s eyes widened. “You want me to warn Lady Sybil off for you?”

“Or don’t,” Thomas said, with a shrug. “Sister Crawley might have it in hand; I’m not sure.” He pushed his chair back. “I’m for bed—can you ask Mr. Bates...? Still haven’t had a minute to look for that alarm clock.”

“Yes, of course,” she said. No matter what else was happening, the hospital still needed him to get there on time. 

Anna was still a bit unsettled when Mr. Bates returned to the servants’ hall, and contrived to meet him in the boot room. “Have you spoken to Thomas?” she asked.

“Not since yesterday. Am I supposed to wake him up again?” he asked resignedly.

“Yes,” she said. “He does mean to get an alarm clock, but I suppose it’s difficult. He’ll probably need to go to Ripon or Thirsk for it.”

“It’s fine,” Mr. Bates said. “I’m already most of the way to the top of the house at that time, dressing his lordship.”

“Did he mention anything about a young lieutenant who had to have his arm amputated?” 

“No, why?”

She tried to think how to explain. “There’s some question about whether he was looked after properly,” she finally said. “And now, it seems, they had to amputate again this morning, and he might not live.” 

“That’s unfortunate.” Then he looked up from the shoe he was brushing. “Do you mean they’re saying _Thomas_ might not have looked after him properly?”

Anna hesitated. “I’m not sure.” 

“I know Miss O’Brien’s been dropping hints that he’s not as much of a medical expert as he makes himself out to be, but I didn’t think there was anything in it. At least, nothing more serious than him puffing himself up a bit.”

“Well, Lady Sybil told me, about the Lieutenant. She didn’t mention Thomas’s name.”

“And this was happening yesterday?” Mr. Bates asked.

“I think so,” Anna said, trying to straighten out the order of events. “Yes, the first amputation was the night before last, and Lady Sybil spoke to me about it last evening.” 

“All he talked to me about was whether he ought to call his lordship ‘sir’ or ‘my lord’ when he’s in uniform,” Mr. Bates said, with a shake of his head. “I suppose he could have decided to worry about that all of the sudden—after he’s been back a month—if he’s on thin ice otherwise.”

#

“Thomas?” Bates said, knocking at the door. 

“I’m up,” Thomas called, throwing off the covers and sitting up. He must have been more tired than he thought; yesterday, the sound of Bates limping down the passage had been enough to wake him.

The door opened a crack, and Bates’s beady eye peered in. “Are you—Christ!”

Thomas’s shoulder had been bothering him a bit, and after wrestling his way out of his uniform, he hadn’t bothered putting on the top to his pyjamas. It wasn’t hard to guess what Bates—now pushing the door open further and stepping in—was looking at. Thomas had gotten used to the sight of his wound—a crater on his upper chest and shoulder—but it was undeniably gruesome. “Not sure you should be walking in on blokes _en dishabille_ ,” he said. “Somebody might get the wrong idea.” 

“Sorry,” said Bates.

But he didn’t leave, so Thomas reached for his shirt and pulled it on—if anyone _did_ notice that Thomas was half-naked and had a man in his room, it wasn’t Bates they’d blame. He got a bit stuck in it—his shoulder really was a bit stiffer than usual—and he heard Bates taking a step toward him, but fortunately, he managed to get it on before Bates actually _helped_ him with it. Or whatever he’d been planning to do.

“Does it hurt?” Bates asked.

“Some,” Thomas said. “It’s playing up a bit today—change in the weather, maybe.”

Bates nodded. “Mine does that.”

Since he still wasn’t leaving, Thomas asked, “Did you have a chance to ask his lordship, about what I’m supposed to call him?”

“Not yet,” Bates said. 

Thomas didn’t suppose there was any hurry—he’d gone a month without running into him; he might well go another, and be gone before the issue arose again. “I don’t think he’s too bothered, honestly, but I’d hate to get it wrong in front of Carson.” Thomas did have a sort of nagging anxiety that, if Carson found out there was such a thing as F.P. One, he’d find a way to put Thomas on it. He knew it wasn’t terribly realistic, but he’d had a couple of hair-raising nightmares on the subject.

“Carson’s tense enough, with the looming prospect of maids in the dining room,” Bates said, in a tone of agreement. “Is there anything else that’s bothering you?”

Besides his shoulder, or besides Carson? “No,” Thomas said, which he supposed would work either way.

“Anna mentioned something about a lieutenant having his arm amputated?”

He shouldn’t have said that about Turnbull being good-looking—he’d meant it as a reason why Nurse Crawley was taking it hard, but he could hardly clarify that. “It’s Lady Sybil that’s bothered about that,” Thomas answered. “I’ve seen dozens of them. Hundreds, probably.”

“And there’s nothing different about this one?” 

“Not really,” Thomas answered, puzzled. “I mean, I assisted with the operations—hadn’t done that before—but it was fine. I only told Anna about it because I thought Lady Sybil might want to talk about it.” And in the hopes that Anna would help keep her off the warpath with regards to Nurse Whibley. But Anna didn’t want to do that, for some reason. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to get dressed now.” 

#

Bates seemed mildly preoccupied as he dressed Robert for dinner, but that wasn’t terribly unusual these days—he’d let on, a while ago, that he was attempting to divorce his thieving shrew of a wife, and from the absence of new information on the matter, Robert gathered it wasn’t going as he’d hoped.

But it was a different subject he brought up, in response to a polite question from Robert about how things were downstairs. “Now that you mention it, Thomas,” he said, and Robert’s stomach sank a bit, “is wondering whether, if he were to speak to you, he ought to call you ‘sir’ or ‘my lord.’ Seeing as you’re both in uniform.”

That was a relief—Robert had been expecting to hear about some sort of _contremps_ with Carson. “I did run into him the other day, on the way down to the village,” Robert said. How _had_ Thomas addressed him then? “‘Sir,’ I should think. As you say, we are both in uniform.” Even though Robert felt a bit of a fraud wearing it, his actual duties with the North Riding Volunteers being limited to regimental dinners and occasionally reviewing the men on parade. “How is he otherwise? I hope he’s recovering well.”

“I happened to see the wound today—I’ve been waking him for night duty, down at the hospital,” Bates explained as he put Robert’s cufflinks in. “It looks worse than I would have guessed, but it doesn’t seem to slow him down much.”

Robert had wondered a bit why Thomas was heading toward the house in the morning. “Making himself indispensible down there, is he?” Perhaps they’d keep him on, and Carson wouldn’t get him back as a footman after all. 

Bates hesitated. “Have you heard something, my lord? About how he’s making out at the hospital?”

“No,” Robert said. Was there something he _should_ have heard? “The hospital is her ladyship’s department.”

“Yes, my lord,” Bates said quickly, bringing Robert’s evening coat.

“Why do you ask?”

Bates hesitated again. “I’d heard they’ve been having a difficult few days there, my lord, that’s all.”

“I see,” Robert said, and privately resolved to ask Cora if _she_ had heard anything.

#

Arriving at the hospital, Thomas found screens set up around Lieutenant Turnbull’s bed. For a moment, he wished he _had_ taken Bates up on the offer to talk about it. It was true that he’d seen dozens of amputations, as well as dozens of patients succumbing to infection after seemingly minor wounds. But this would be the first time since his own seemingly-minor wound that he’d actually watched one die. 

He suddenly and vividly remembered being stacked up somewhere with a lot of other walking cases—the collecting post, maybe, or the improvised tent-ward at the station—and being struck by the absolute conviction that if he didn’t disinfect his own wound, nobody would. There had been a crate of antiseptic a short distance away—he could see it now, with a scrape in the wood where it said “bot. 2 doz.” He’d staggered over to it and dumped a whole bottle into his shoulder, then—with a guilty feeling, as though he’d just snagged the last spot in a lifeboat—attempted to do the same for a few of the other unfortunates nearest him. 

He wouldn’t have needed to. The others—Rawlins, the Wardmaster, Captain Allenby, Jessop—had looked after him. There hadn’t been enough time to look after everyone properly, but they’d taken care of _him_. Like he was somebody important. 

It wouldn’t happen here. Anna and Mrs. Hughes might make a bit of effort—and Daisy; she’d been going above and beyond packing him picnic suppers for his night shifts, not just the sandwiches she’d mentioned, but deviled eggs and slices of cake and things—but the others…. The others—Mr. Carson especially—would be scrupulously fair. Treat him the same as anyone else. 

If the 47th had treated him like anyone else, he might very well be dead. 

“Corporal Barrow? Corporal Barrow, are you all right?”

It was Sister Crawley—where she’d appeared from, he had no idea. “Yes, ma’am. Ah…it’s a shame about Lieutenant Turnbull.”

“Yes, it is,” she said, with a sigh. “His fever has risen, and the other wounds have all gone septic. He won’t last the night.”

Thomas had gathered that, from the screens. “Yes, ma’am. Is anyone available to sit with him?”

“Nurse Crawley has volunteered,” she said. “He’s quite delirious, but there’s some chance he may wake and be capable of imparting some message that his people would like to hear.”

And if he didn’t, they’d make one up, Thomas knew. “Does she know what to expect?”

Sister Crawley nodded. “We’ve discussed it. And I’ll send word up to the house that they’re not to look for her before morning.”

She went on to brief him about the other patients. Captain Prescott continued to do well—well enough that they had considered reducing the frequency of his dressing changes. “But since Nurse Crawley will be taking care of Lieutenant Turnbull, we’ll keep doing them every two hours for tonight.” For the same reason, a number of Thomas’s cases were transferred back to Nurse Fairchild, which would give Thomas an easier night. 

After discussing a few more cases, Sister Crawley said, “I’ll just go and speak to the girls—Nurse Fairchild has attended deathbeds before, but not many—and then leave everything to your capable hands.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

#

In the library before dinner, Robert was fixing himself a drink when Carson came in. He spoke briefly to Cora, who spoke rather sharply to him, then softened—apologizing, perhaps—and then came over to him. “It seems Sybil will be staying the night at the hospital,” she said, adding, with some asperity, “Cousin Isobel was kind enough to inform us.”

“Did she say why?” Robert asked. They’d discussed night duty before—Sybil had informed them that the other young ladies took their turn at it, but neither Robert nor Cora was entirely comfortable with the idea of her passing the night in a building full of men. They had not precisely forbidden it, but Cousin Isobel had agreed to defer the matter for a later time. It did seem a bit sneaky for her to handle it in this way.

“Only that there was a patient needing special attention, and Sybil volunteered,” Cora said.

That wasn’t so very surprising—Sybil did seem keen to tackle anything the hospital threw at her. And setting her apart from the other VAD nurses was a recipe for resentment; Robert had learned in his days in the Army that a junior officer from a prominent family had to be careful about avoiding any appearance of special treatment, if he wanted to fit in with his fellows. Robert might not have thought of it that way before, but, as Thomas had reminded him, she _was_ an honorary officer. 

Not that Cora would be very impressed with that argument, impatient as she was with Robert’s own wish to do more for the war effort. “Thomas is there,” he offered instead. “Bates mentioned he’s on night duty at the moment. I’m sure he’ll keep an eye out.” 

“Thomas,” Cora said, with a slight roll of her eyes. “He wouldn’t be my _first_ choice as a guardian of our daughter’s virtue.”

“He’s done it before,” Robert reminded her. And with complete discretion—there was no telling _what_ could have happened if word had gotten out about the Turk in Mary’s bedroom.

“Don’t remind me,” said Cora, glancing over at Mary, who was—unsurprisingly—bickering with Edith about something.

Obediently, Robert shifted the subject. “Speaking of Thomas, have you heard anything about how he’s working out at the hospital?”

“Should I have?” she asked. 

“Not that I’m aware,” Robert answered. “Bates…hinted that there was some sort of difficulty.”

“I see,” said Cora. “I’ll look into it.” 

#

“Well…to hear him tell it,” O’Brien said, carefully unpinning Cora’s hair, “it’s a marvel they ever managed without him.” 

Cora met her eyes in the mirror. “Well, he is a _man_.” Goodness knew Robert had difficulty understanding how the Army could possibly conduct a war in France while he was in Yorkshire. 

They shared a fond smile at men and their little ways before O’Brien continued, “I shouldn’t be surprised if he’s puffing himself up a bit, but it may be more than that. The first time he was on night duty, they had to send for Mrs. Crawley. And now Lady Sybil? It does make me wonder.”

“You think perhaps he isn’t reliable?”

“Or not as knowledgeable as he pretends,” O’Brien suggested. “And I imagine it would be difficult to tell him to stop coming, since he doesn’t really work there. They might even worry that the family would object, as he’s staying here.” 

“Doctor Clarkson hasn’t said anything like _that_ ,” Cora said. 

“I’m sure he’d hesitate to, as this family has done so much for the hospital.” As she began braiding Cora’s hair, she mused, “I really do wonder about that wound of his.”

“What about it?” Cora asked.

“Oh—I don’t like to say, my lady.”

Now Cora was even more curious. “Please do, if there’s something you feel I should know.” 

“It’s only that he won’t quite explain how he came to be at the Front on that day,” O’Brien said reluctantly. “He’d told us all along that he was working in a field hospital, behind the lines and quite safe, doing all sorts of complicated medical work. Then all of the sudden, he was at the Front carrying a stretcher.”

Cora hadn’t really thought of it that way before. “Do you mean to suggest he wasn’t telling the truth about his hospital work?”

“Perhaps,” O’Brien said. “Or…well, I wondered if he’d gotten into some sort of trouble that he was ashamed to tell us about. My brother—the one I told you about, my lady—tells me that they will often move a man into a more dangerous position if they feel he isn’t reliable. If someone must be put at risk, it might as well be....” She trailed off.

“How _is_ Paul?” Cora asked. O’Brien’s brother—her favorite one, she said—had been sent to a war hospital in London last year, with nerve troubles.

“They said he was recovered, and sent him back, my lady.”

“Back to France?”

“Yes, my lady.” 

“Oh, O’Brien.” Cora turned to look at her, pulling her braid loose in the process. “I’m so sorry to hear that. I know it isn’t what you were hoping for.” She’d been so relieved, when her brother was sent home. 

“That’s kind of you to say, my lady.” She resumed braiding. “But speaking of Thomas…it wouldn’t be the first time he’s made trouble for himself.” 

Well, if O’Brien didn’t want to discuss her brother, Cora wouldn’t pry any further. “No, I suppose not.” 

She’d speak to Doctor Clarkson about the matter—just to make sure he knew there was no obligation to keep Thomas on, if it wasn’t working out. 

#

“Can I have one of those?” Nurse Crawley asked.

Thomas was sitting on the wall outside the hospital, smoking a cigarette. He was fairly sure he’d heard somewhere that VAD girls were forbidden to smoke anywhere except—if they absolutely had to—their own rooms, but it seemed impolitic to say so. He opened his cigarette case—he’d started carrying it again, since getting back to England—and angled it in her direction.

“Thank you,” she said, taking one. 

He passed her the lighter—lighting it for her seemed a bit of a liberty. 

She lit it, and inhaled expertly. “Please don’t tell them up at the house,” she added. “All the girls do it, but I don’t think they’d understand.”

“Of course,” Thomas said. He glanced over at her; she was pale and making an obvious effort to appear composed. “Is he…?”

She nodded. “Private Dixon helped me move him. I just—wanted to take a moment, before I started laying him out.”

Probably a good idea. “Did he regain awareness, at all?”

“Not really. He called out for his mother, a few times, but he was in delirium.”

“In the letter, you’ll say that his last thoughts were of her,” Thomas said. It was best to weave in as much of the truth as you could. Kept the letters from all being the same, and made it easier to remember what you’d already said, if they wrote back wanting more details.

“And that he was comfortable and unafraid,” she said, with a nod. “Cousin Isobel told me.” 

“Yeah. You always say that. And I’d put in that you were with him the whole time, and you volunteered to stay past your shift, because you felt close to him. That helps, if they know he wasn’t alone, and that he was…special, to the person who was with him.” That was what Jessop had said, anyway, when Thomas had had to answer letters from the wives and mothers and sisters of men he watched die. 

“I wasn’t in love with him,” Nurse Crawley pointed out. 

“Then don’t say you were,” Thomas answered. “But it doesn’t do anyone any harm if they get the idea you might have been.” 

She considered that for a moment. “No, I suppose it doesn’t.”

A few hours later, they were walking toward the house, with Thomas fervently hoping that no one from the household—upstairs or down—would see them. Nurse Crawley had seemed to take for granted that they would walk back together, even lingering while he finished briefing the others on his cases, so that they’d leave at the same time.

“She _still_ won’t see reason about Nurse Whibley,” Nurse Crawley was saying. “Even after this.”

Thomas made a noncommittal sound. Someone, he thought, ought to tell her quite frankly to drop it—she’d already gone further than anyone else would have gotten away with, in terms of questioning her superiors’ decisions. But surely it could be someone other than _him_. “Nurse Whibley has her uses,” he pointed out mildly. Sister Crawley had, as she’d hinted earlier, kept Nurse Whibley on duties where her out-of-date practices couldn’t do any harm. 

“That’s what Cousin Isobel says,” Nurse Crawley said. 

_Sister Crawley_ , Thomas thought, but did not say. That was the problem right there. In the family, Lady Sybil outranked Cousin Isobel. In the hospital, Nurse Crawley most emphatically did _not_ outrank Sister Crawley. 

She sighed, and continued, “But I have an idea what to do next.”

“Oh?” 

“Yes. I’ll talk to Mama.” 

Oh, Christ. “Why’s that?” he asked, hoping the answer would be something he hadn’t thought of.

“She’s on the hospital board,” Nurse Crawley reminded him. “If she agrees that Nurse Whibley has got to go, that’ll be that.” 

That was what he’d been afraid of. “I see.” He ought to just let her do it—what was it to him, if the rest of the hospital got wind of it and thought she was acting like a spoilt child? One way or another, he’d be gone in a month. 

But Jessop and the Wardmaster had steered him clear of a few missteps. And Lady Sybil’d never done anything to him. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” he asked.

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

 _Because Major Clarkson already thinks people named “Crawley” have too much to say about how he runs his hospital_ , Thomas thought. He’d heard a thing or two on the subject from the other orderlies. “The Acting Ward Sister and the Chief Medical Officer are responsible for that sort of thing,” he said instead. 

“But they’re making a mistake.” 

_No one cares if_ you _think they’re making a mistake_ , Thomas carefully did not say. _You’re in the Army now._ But that thought gave him an idea. “You might try asking his lordship what he thinks,” he suggested.

“Papa? He doesn’t have anything to do with the hospital.”

“No, but he knows how things are done in the Army,” Thomas explained. “They told you that you’re honorary officers, didn’t they?”

She nodded. “Yes, but Papa won’t see it that way. He still thinks of me as a little girl.”

 _And so will everyone else, if you run to your Mama about this_. “Perhaps you could ask him what advice he’d give a junior officer in this situation. Say, if Mr. Matthew had lost confidence in the officer above him, thought he was making dangerous decisions, that sort of thing.”

“The senior officer is Nurse Whibley?” she asked.

“Yes,” Thomas said, and continued, “He’s talked about it with the next officer up the chain—that’s Acting Ward Sister Crawley—but he doesn’t feel he’s taking it seriously enough. What would his lordship suggest Mr. Matthew do?” Thomas felt fairly sure that he would tell Mr. Matthew to keep his lip buttoned. 

“I suppose that might work,” she said slowly. “If I put it to him that way.” 

“It might,” Thomas agreed. There—no one could say he hadn’t tried, or that he’d overstepped himself.

#

“Papa?” It was Sybil, standing at the doorway to the library in her nursing uniform. 

“Yes?” Robert asked. She looked tired, he thought. “I hope they aren’t working you too hard down there.” 

“Oh, no,” she said, coming into the room and sitting down. “I enjoy it—well, enjoy isn’t quite the word, I suppose. Last night I sat up with a young man who was dying; no one would enjoy that. But it feels more important than anything I’ve ever done.”

Robert remembered feeling that way about his Army duties, when he’d been her age. It seemed so much more real and pressing than his duty to the estate—which, at that time, they’d expected to go to his elder brother in any case. Strange to think of having that in common with a young girl. “But if it does become too much for you, you’ll say.”

“It won’t,” she answered. “But there was something I wanted to ask you about. As a…fellow officer, sort of.”

“All right,” Robert said, careful to betray no amusement at the notion of his daughter as a fellow officer. She was, after all, serving her country in uniform—more than he was, if he was being honest about it. 

“It’s about another of the nurses at the hospital. Not a VAD; she was a private-duty nurse before the war. So I suppose she outranks me, technically.”

If she was really in the Army, there’d be no _technically_ about it. Still, Robert began to get the sense that they were treading on familiar ground. “But you…find it difficult to respect her?” he suggested. He’d certainly had more than one senior officer, in his military career, who presented that difficulty. 

“Yes,” Sybil said. “That’s just it. She doesn’t understand modern medical practices. And a man has died because of it.”

In a fighting unit, an out-of-touch or incompetent officer could cause the deaths of many more men than just one—or at least be judged as having done so, in the court of popular opinion. “Are you certain? That she was to blame for the death?”

She hesitated. “Cousin Isobel says we can’t be certain. So does Corporal Barrow. But he’d have had a chance, at least, if she hadn’t refused to let us examine his wound.” 

Robert was relieved to hear that the woman they were talking about _wasn’t_ Cousin Isobel. “So she made a decision that you disagree with,” he said, “but it wasn’t flagrantly reckless, or in complete disregard of the man’s life?”

“It isn’t just that I disagree,” Sybil said. “She was wrong.”

Weren’t they always? “When I was in the Army—properly in the Army, I mean—a great many of my senior officers were wrong from time to time,” he said. “It sounds as though you’ve already talked it over with,” what was it Thomas had called her? “The Acting Ward Sister. Is she this other nurse’s superior officer as well?”

Sybil nodded. “Yes, she’s in charge of all the nurses. But she’s no help—she just says that Nurse Whibley is doing her best, and she and Doctor Clarkson are keeping watch over her, and things like that.”

“Hm,” Robert said. He knew from his days as a _senior_ officer that that was the sort of thing one said to a junior officer who had complaints about his superiors—whether you intended to do anything further or not. “As a junior officer,” he said, “you can’t really expect to be kept informed about disciplinary action against a senior officer. It may well be that Cousin Isobel and Doctor Clarkson have the matter in hand.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” she admitted. 

“And you’ve talked to Corporal Barrow about it?” Robert asked. Perhaps this—or something to do with this—was the difficulty Bates had alluded to. “What does he say?”

“I have,” she said. “He says to leave it to Cousin Isobel and Doctor Clarkson.”

Robert was relieved to hear that—it wouldn’t precisely be unprecedented for Thomas to try to cause trouble for someone he’d taken a dislike to, but if he was involving Sybil in one of his feuds, that would be beyond the pale. “I see,” he said. “Well, in my experience, the NCOs often know more about what’s going on in a regiment than the junior officers do.”

“I suppose he might,” Sybil said. “He’s next in charge after Cousin Isobel, really. Even though technically he isn’t.” 

That was very nearly the definition of a good NCO in a regiment heavy with green junior officers. “In that case, if he thinks the matter is under control, he may well be right.” 

“But what if he isn’t? What if I do nothing, and someone else dies?”

At that, Robert was half-tempted to tell her to stop working at the hospital—a girl her age shouldn’t have to think about things like that. But plenty of young men her age were facing situations even more stark, leading men to their deaths. Sybil had chosen to serve her country, and that was an honorable thing for her to have done, even if it brought her into contact with things he would rather she not know of. What could he tell her? “Darling….”

“What would you tell Cousin Matthew?” she added. “If he was serving under an officer who was getting people killed?”

Put that way, the question had a straightforward answer—unlike when he’d been thinking of his youngest daughter dealing with matters of life and death. “I would tell him that he must be ready to lodge a formal protest, if he receives orders that he believes recklessly and needlessly endanger his men,” he said. “And then, if his protest is unsuccessful, to decide whether to carry them out, or to risk being found in a state of mutiny.”

Sybil went pale. 

“I expect it’s a bit different for nurses,” Robert added gently. “But it is a very serious matter. When one joins the Army, one makes a promise to respect the chain of command, whether one agrees with it or not. And even if a particular officer is…difficult to respect. Going back on that promise carries consequences.”

She nodded, jerkily. “I—I had thought of asking Mama to…do something about her,” she admitted. “Because she’s on the hospital board. I suppose that was childish of me.”

“It was,” Robert said frankly. “And I’m not sure it would have been possible, since the hospital is now under military authority. If you had succeeded—or even if you had tried—I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Major Clarkson didn’t want you working under him any longer.” 

“I wouldn’t want that,” Sybil said. “My work at the hospital means everything to me.”

“Then you must accept that your role in the Army is different from your role as a representative of this family,” Robert told her. “Even though your work is here, in this county, where our family is so prominent and everyone knows you as Lady Sybil. I expect it was a bit easier for me, going to Sandhurst, and then overseas with the regiment, where no one cared if I was Lord Robert at home or not, but there you have it.”

“I see,” she said. “You’ve given me a lot to think about.”

“I should start,” Robert suggested, “by asking the Ward Sister what to do if this Nurse Whibley gives you an order that you believe is dangerous.”

“And that’s all right?” she said. “To ask that?”

“Yes,” Robert said. “It’s nearly always all right to ask a senior officer what you should do in a given situation. What’s not all right is telling them what _they_ should do, or attempting to get round them.” The latter wasn’t entirely true—there _were_ times when getting round a senior officer was the only thing to do—but it seemed best not to muddy the waters at this point. 

“I’ll do that,” Sybil said, standing up. “Thank you, Papa. I’m glad I asked you.”

“I’m glad you asked me, too,” Robert said, surprising himself with his own frankness. A father of daughters, he’d often thought, seemed to grow less and less relevant to his children’s lives as they got older. He and Matthew did, sometimes, have the sort of man-to-man talks he’d imagined having with a son, but it wasn’t quite the same. “Whatever made you think of consulting your silly old Papa?”

“Corporal Barrow suggested it, actually,” she said. “He said you’d know all about how they do things in the Army.” She kissed him on the cheek, and added, “I’m off to bed—I’m on night duty again tonight.”

She was gone before Robert had a chance to point out that he and Cora had never agreed she could go on night duty.

Well, it was only senior officers they’d discussed not attempting to get round—not Mamas. 

#

“You were right,” Nurse Crawley said, as they started down the drive. Bates had informed Thomas that, as both of them were on night duty, he was now responsible for seeing that Lady Sybil wasn’t ravished walking down to the village in the dark. As a result, he’d had to stand by the front door like a prat, waiting for her to come out. Fortunately, she hadn’t been late. 

“About what?” he asked. 

“Talking to Papa. He said that if I had gone to Mama about Nurse Whibley, I’d be disrespecting the chain of command, and Doctor Clarkson might not let me work at the hospital anymore.”

Thomas didn’t think Major Clarkson would have gone that far—the war would end eventually, after all, and the Crawleys would still be here when it did—but he said, “Yes, he might have.”

“Why didn’t you say so?”

Thomas looked at her. “Because you’re Lady Sybil Crawley, and I’m a former footman.”

“I don’t care about things like that,” Nurse Crawley said.

Thomas didn’t have the luxury of not caring about things like that. “Really? You were ready to sic her ladyship on Nurse Whibley. None of the rest of us would have known who could be next.”

“I’d never,” she began indignantly. 

“You almost did,” Thomas interrupted. “My lady.” And he said it—as he’d once told Rawlins—like a fucking ponce.

They walked on in silence for a moment—long enough for Thomas to start to wonder if he’d just made a grave error—until Nurse Crawley said, “You’re right, again. I didn’t think about how it would seem to everyone else. Pax?”

“Pax,” he agreed. Not that he had a great deal of choice.

When they reached the hospital, Nurse Crawley headed straight for Sister Crawley, so Thomas went to confer with the orderlies who’d been working on the wards during the day shift, instead. Captain Prescott continued to do well, and there were no surprises with the other patients, except that one—a Major Pettigrew—had been told by Major Clarkson to stay in bed, but felt he was more than well enough to be up and about. “With any luck, he’ll go to sleep and not give you a hard time,” said Private Wells, who’d been looking after him during the day. 

“Now you’ve gone and jinxed it,” Thomas said. “Look sharp,” he added, noticing Sister Crawley heading their way.

“Corporal Barrow,” she said. 

Wells took the hint and scurried away. “Ma’am,” Thomas said. 

“One of the nurses has asked what they ought to do if Nurse Whibley gives them instructions that…don’t seem quite right,” she said.

It wasn’t too hard to guess which nurse that had been. “Yes, ma’am?”

“I’ve said that they should ask me, or, in my absence, you.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Thomas said. The first part of that, he had no issue with. “Just to be clear, you’re instructing me to countermand Nurse Whibley, if necessary?”

“If necessary, yes. I’ll also be telling her not to give instructions to the other nurses without my approval, but….”

But Nurse Whibley had been told the principles of modern wound care many times, without it sinking in, so there was no telling whether she’d choose to remember this or not. “I see. Thank you, ma’am.”

“It’s a bit awkward, but I don’t see what else we can do, really,” Sister Crawley added. 

Thomas wondered what they’d do when he _left_. “Yes, ma’am.”

#

“Robert,” Cora said, appearing in the doorway of his dressing room. 

Her tone boded nothing good—and besides that, she scarcely ever turned up in his dressing room unless there was something she urgently needed to discuss in private. “That’ll be all, Bates,” he said quickly. 

She moved aside to let Bates exit, and Robert used the time to finish tying his white tie. Once he was gone, she asked, “Why did I have to find out from O’Brien that Sybil has gone on night duty again?” She spoke very quickly, as she did when she was angry.

“I meant to tell you that,” Robert said. “But you were out, and then I was out, and then it was the dressing gong….”

“And you did not feel I should be consulted?”

“She didn’t precisely consult me, either,” he said. “But I don’t see how we can object, if it’s something they’re all expected to do.”

“I thought that we were agreed on this,” Cora said. 

He sighed. “We had a talk today, Sybil and I. About a…difficulty she’s having at the hospital. It made me realize….” He wasn’t sure precisely what he had realized. “If she were a boy, she’d likely be over in France, commanding a platoon.” Being out of the house at night in their own village was a small price to pay compared to that. 

“She isn’t a boy,” Cora reminded him. “She’s our little girl.”

“And our little girl has volunteered to serve her king and country,” Robert reminded _her_. “It would be quite wrong for us to ask that she be treated any differently from the other young ladies, and it would quite likely diminish her in the eyes of her….” He hesitated over the word. “Sister officers.” That really didn’t sound right. 

“And you’ve just decided this?”

“We decided it when we agreed she could sign up as a nurse,” Robert said. “We may not have entirely realized it, but imagine the state the Army would be in if everyone’s parents demanded a say in what duties they were assigned.”

“We might be a great deal better off,” Cora said tartly. Then, after a moment’s reflection, “At least, if the Germans did the same.”

“She’ll be all right,” Robert said, shifting the subject. “It _is_ a long way to go in the dark, but I’ve said she’s to walk with Thomas.” Of course, if it was any other man, that wouldn’t be a solution at all—young girls and moonlit walks and young men all being what they were—but they both knew about Thomas.

#

“It could be a lot worse,” Corporal Barrow said, gesturing with his sandwich. He and Sybil were in the patients’ day room, having their tea break—Sybil was glad to see that Mrs. Patmore had sent something for him to eat as well; otherwise it would have been _dreadfully_ awkward. “She could actually be in charge.”

They were talking about Nurse Whibley, of course. He had a point; at least Cousin Isobel—Sister Crawley, she should think of her on duty—was sensible. 

Corporal Barrow went on, “At the Base Hospital in France, the VAD nurse was working under a Ward Sister who wouldn’t let her do dressing changes without supervision. She didn’t like orderlies, either. It was a right mess, when all the wounded from the Somme started turning up. The man next to me had a dressing that hadn’t been changed in days—the Sister had hundreds of patients to look after, you see—and it was going septic.”

Hadn’t he been at a Dressing Station? Sybil thought that was what Anna had said. “What did you do?”

“Well, I just started doing the dressing change.” He shrugged. “Didn’t want him losing the leg, and I figured there wasn’t much they could do to me, as I was a patient.”

Oh, of course—he would have been sent to a Base Hospital when he was wounded. 

He continued, “Then the VAD decided to help, which was a good thing since I couldn’t use my left hand at the time. She might’ve gotten in trouble, but luckily the Chief Medical Officer saw things the right way.”

Sybil thought of what Papa had said, about dangerous orders and risking being found in a state of mutiny. “That _was_ lucky.”

He nodded. “I doubt they do anything too dreadful to nurses, but I expect they might have sent her home.”

Being sent home in disgrace seemed dreadful enough to Sybil—though she supposed it wouldn’t seem so, to someone who had been at the Front and been wounded. “She sounds like someone I’d quite like to know.”

“You might,” Corporal Barrow said. “Pretty sure she’s one of your lot. Fortescue.”

“Not _Vera_ Fortescue,” Sybil said. Then she realized, “Oh, no, it couldn’t be—she’s not old enough.” You had to be twenty-three to even apply for a posting abroad, and Vera was about her age—they’d been presented at court at the same time.

Corporal Barrow shook his head. “Harriet—though you didn’t hear it from me; we’re not meant to be on Christian-name terms with nurses.”

“Vera’s older sister,” Sybil said. _She’d_ come out with Mary—or else Edith. “I don’t really know her, but we’ve met.” It had been at some ball or other, during her Season. 

“Shouldn’t be surprised if you run into her again,” Corporal Barrow said. “Once this is all over.”

She very well might, Sybil realized—though it was difficult to imagine going to a London ball and talking to someone who had nursed in France. It was almost as difficult to imagine going to a London ball again, full stop. “Do you suppose things will just—go back to how they were? When it’s all over?”

Corporal Barrow shrugged. “I suppose they must.”

“I don’t see how,” Sybil said. Or how she’d survive it, if they did. Paying calls and going to dress fittings and all the rest of it had seemed stifling _before_ , when she didn’t have anything to compare it to. When going down to dinner in trousers, in her own family’s house, had seemed the height of daring. 

“Me neither, but none of us would have foreseen _this_.” His vague gesture encompassed the two of them, the hospital, and perhaps the entire war. 

“It’ll _have_ to be different,” Sybil said. “Because _we’ll_ all be different. We can’t go on being the same, after everything we’ve seen and done.” 

“No, I don’t suppose we can,” Corporal Barrow said, gathering up the sandwich wrappings. “But that doesn’t mean anything else will change.”

“We’ll _make_ it change,” she answered. “All of us, I mean. The War Generation.” Some of the magazines had started calling them that. It seemed thrilling and important.

“Maybe,” said Corporal Barrow. “But I’ll wager there are plenty in our generation who liked things just fine the way they were, and can’t wait for everything to get back to normal.”

He had a point. Mary, for instance, was one of them—she often spoke of the war as if its primary significance was interrupting her courtship with Cousin Matthew. “But it can’t be most of us,” she said. “Especially not among the women. Not after we’ve seen what it’s like to _do_ things, important things. I can’t go back to being just an…ornament.”

Corporal Barrow gave her a steady look, then finally said, “Best get back to work.” 

Sybil had the distinct impression she’d offended him, although she wasn’t sure how.

#

“I suppose it sounded a bit silly, what I said about not wanting to go back to the way things were before the war,” Nurse Crawley said, as they walked back up to the house in the morning. “I know my life—my old life—is very easy, compared to other people’s.”

 _It is_ , Thomas thought, but said instead, “I’ve never found that helps much—other people having it worse, I mean. For instance, anybody who’s lost a limb would be glad to have my wound.” So would quite a few men still in France, for that matter. “I know that, but I still don’t _feel_ lucky.”

“Yes,” Nurse Crawley said. “That’s just it—one feels guilty for not appreciating one’s circumstances—but that’s not quite the same thing as truly appreciating them.” She sighed.

“I thought it was interesting, what you said about not wanting to go back to being an ornament,” Thomas said, because he had. What had bothered him about it was the fact that _she_ might actually have a choice in the matter. “Being a footman’s a bit like that, really. I once told somebody—a friend of mine in France—it’s like you’re wallpaper. You’re always on display, but nobody’s really meant to notice you.” It was, looked at one way, an astonishingly impertinent thing for him to be saying—but he wasn’t wallpaper, at the moment, and Nurse Crawley wasn’t an ornament, at the moment. 

Fortunately, she didn’t take offense. “I’d never quite thought of it that way,” she admitted. “I suppose if you’re wallpaper, we must be paintings—my sisters and me, I mean. Even Mama. Being a painting may have some advantages over being wallpaper, but I doubt it’s any more interesting.”

It was an apt comparison, Thomas thought. Downton’s paintings were certainly more valuable than its wallpaper, but when you got down to it, both were just hanging there on the wall, watching life go by. “No, I don’t imagine it would be.” It was a strange thought, Lady Sybil—one of the family—feeling just as stifled in the house as he did. 

They walked on for a bit. “I’m not sure I’d mind the part about not being noticed,” Nurse Crawley said. “It seems as though all I’ve heard, since leaving the nursery, is how being the daughter of an Earl means that all eyes are upon me, and I must not do anything to cause comment.”

“Oh, wallpaper can’t get away with anything, either,” Thomas said. That wasn’t _quite_ true—he couldn’t imagine any of the young ladies sneaking off to dens of iniquity while the family was in London, for instance. “If you’ve ever in your life noticed a piece of wallpaper, it’ll have been because there was something wrong with it.”

“That’s true,” said Nurse Crawley. “I was just thinking, in fact, about the wallpaper in the room I stayed in at my nursing course. There was a piece behind the door that was hung upside-down. Once I’d noticed it, I couldn’t look around the room without my eye being drawn to it.”

Thomas nodded. “A painting that’s upside-down, now that might be that the artist was doing something too modern and interesting for the average person to understand. Upside-down wallpaper is just a mistake.” 

She laughed. “I suppose. But Mama and Papa don’t want me to be interesting and modern, I’m afraid.” 

Thomas wondered if that _really_ mattered—if she could, if she were brave enough, decide that it didn’t. Perhaps not—he supposed there’d be obstacles to an earl’s daughter making a different kind of life, though he didn’t know what they might be, exactly.

Before he could decide whether to risk the impertinence of asking, she said, “Did you know, Nurse Fairchild was set to go up to Oxford, when the war started? I’d never known anyone before who even _thought_ of going to University. Any woman, I mean.” 

For the second time in this conversation, Thomas thought of Rouse—what he’d said about having to have a schoolmaster take an interest in him before he could even think of going to secondary school, and so on. Nurse Fairchild was the curate’s daughter—would it have been any easier for her? “How’d she manage that?”

“Well, she’s frightfully clever,” Nurse Crawley said. “And her parents sent her to modern sort of girls’ school—they did Latin. But she had to have a lot of extra tutoring in that, after she’d left school, and learn Greek from scratch, before she could take the entrance examinations. You have to know both, even if you’re reading a modern subject.” She sighed. “I don’t think going to university is what I want, really, but if it were, I’d be miles behind—we only ever learnt French, and dancing, and things like that—and I’d have no hope of catching up if Mama and Papa discouraged it. Tutors have to be paid, for one thing.”

“I see,” Thomas said. Nurse Fairchild might not have needed quite as much luck as Rouse, but it didn’t sound as though it had been easy. 

“I’m not sure what I _do_ want, if not university, but whatever it is, there will be all sorts of details like that to be worked out.”

Yes, of course, tutors wanting paying was a _detail_. 

She went on, “Making a change is much more complicated than I thought, back before the war when I was helping Gwen become a secretary. Do you remember Gwen?”

“Of course,” said Thomas. “She’s the one that got away.”

“I expect she thought I was silly, too. Telling her that her dream would come true if she wanted it enough. I understand now it takes more than that. You’ve got to have a plan, and resources—money and things—and someone who can give you a leg up. Like Cousin Isobel getting me into the nursing course.” She sighed again. “Which brings me right back around to being luckier than other people. What about you?”

“Hm?”

“What would you like to do, after the war?”

Nurse Crawley might understand more now than she had before the war, but she clearly didn’t understand enough, if she thought he’d have even bothered thinking about what he’d _like_ to do after the war. “With my arm the way it is, I’ll have to consider myself lucky if I can get another place as a servant,” he said, with as much patience as he could manage. 

She looked puzzled. “But you manage quite well in the hospital.”

“In the hospital,” he said grimly, “nobody cares how it _looks_ while I’m carrying things.”

“Oh,” she said.

“Yes.” Thomas knew he ought to press on the subject—if he could get her to understand, she might help, as she had helped Gwen. They’d need footmen at Downton again, for one thing. But asking for help being a footman again, so he wouldn’t starve to death, felt a lot like asking to be slapped in the face in the hopes he could avoid a kick in the balls. And he did have at least a month, before he’d find out if the Army was kicking him out. He could afford a bit of delay before he started groveling. “I expect I’ll think of something,” he said instead, as lightly as he could. “I always do.”

#

Mrs. Hughes was in her sitting room, going over some household accounts, when there was a ferocious crash from the next room. Quickly, she put down her pen and got up to see what on _Earth_ was going on.

Going out into the passage, she saw that Miss O’Brien’s attention had also been attracted by the commotion—fortunately, most of the others were elsewhere, beginning the day’s tasks; otherwise, there would likely be a stampede. At Mrs. Hughes’ quelling glare, Miss O’Brien withdrew back into the servants’ hall. 

She opened the door to the storage area next to her room, and found Thomas, with his back to the door, holding a silver serving tray awkwardly in his left hand. At the sound of the door opening, he turned, causing the tray to slip, and swore—rather shockingly. 

Mrs. Hughes was not sure she had ever heard that particular word spoken aloud, as a matter of fact. Certainly not in this house. “ _Thomas_!” she said. “ _Language.”_

He caught the tray in his right hand and said, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Hughes. I…I’m afraid I picked up some bad habits, in the Army.”

“See that you lose them as quickly as possible,” she said. He was lucky Mr. Carson was up in the servery, dealing with the breakfast things. “What in heaven’s name are you doing?”

“Just, um…seeing how my shoulder’s coming along,” he said. “Not as well as I’d hoped, I’m afraid.”

“I see,” she said. She’d wondered herself, if he’d be up to serving at table, should the occasion arise. “Perhaps next time you decide to experiment, you could use one of the _wooden_ trays.” 

He flushed. “Yes, Mrs. Hughes. I…didn’t think of that.” He gave the tray a little polish with the sleeve of his uniform, and put it back on the shelf where it belonged. 

“Well, never mind it now,” she said, beckoning him out of the room. “Has the Army said anything, then, about…what’s going to happen?”

Thomas glanced up the passageway toward the servants’ hall, and Miss O’Brien. She gestured him into her sitting room. Once inside, he said, “No, I wouldn’t expect to hear anything until my medical panel. It hasn’t been scheduled yet.”

Why he’d worry about anyone overhearing _that_ , Mrs. Hughes had no idea—unless there was more that he wasn’t saying. Anna had hinted that he might have made some sort of mistake, down at the hospital. Perhaps he hadn’t been told anything, officially, but had reason to expect they wouldn’t keep him on. “Do you have a sense of how it might turn out?” she asked, gesturing for him to sit by the fire.

He did so, with a sigh. “Not really. Major Clarkson said when I got here that I wasn’t to expect him to do me any favors at my medical panel. I have shown I can manage most of the work, so I’m hoping that’ll help, but…well. I suppose it could go either way.” He managed a pained-looking smile.

That didn’t sound terribly optimistic to Mrs. Hughes. If he was dismissed from the Army—invalided out, she’d heard Mr. Bates call it—and he wasn’t ready to serve at table, Mr. Carson _would_ fuss. But he’d likely fuss no matter what, and once William was called up, he ought to consider himself fortunate to have a footman at all. “Well, a lot can happen in a month,” she said bracingly. 

“Yes, Mrs. Hughes,” he said dully.

For a moment, she was reminded of how he’d been just after poor Mr. Fitzroy’s death—like all the life had been drained out of him. “It’s not as bad as all that,” she reminded him.

He nodded. “I know. I was just telling—someone—I have to count myself lucky I still have the arm.” Then he ducked his head and muttered something she couldn’t quite make out, about Mr. Bates.

“I’m sorry?”

“I said I wish I hadn’t given Bates such a hard time about his leg,” he repeated, more distinctly. “I didn’t really think about…about it being hard to find a place, when you’ve got to ask them to make allowances for you. Even if you can do _most_ of the job.”

Mrs. Hughes couldn’t deny that he’d been beastly about the matter, nor could she be sorry he’d learned the error of his ways—but she did wish the lesson hadn’t been quite this hard. “You might tell him that,” she suggested. 

He gave her a skeptical look. 

“He has warmed up to you a bit, now that you and Anna are friends,” she pointed out gently. It seemed fruitless to attempt to explain that their rivalry had always loomed much larger in Thomas’s mind than in Mr. Bates’s. She’d once heard Thomas refer to Mr. Bates as his “arch-nemesis,” and she didn’t think he’d entirely been joking. 

“I expect it’d be more useful to bury the hatchet with Miss O’Brien,” he said. “Not that there’s much chance of that.”

“She seemed a bit worried, when we were all wondering whether you were still alive,” Mrs. Hughes said.

“If she was, she’s gotten over it.” He leaned back in his chair and took out his cigarettes. She cleared her throat, and he sat up straight, putting them back in his pocket. “Sorry—forgot where I was for a moment there.” He stood up. “If we’ve finished, I should probably be getting to bed.”

“Yes, of course,” she said. 

#

It really was a good thing he’d remembered where he was, Thomas thought, going out into the courtyard and lighting a cigarette. He’d been thinking about how he wouldn’t really mind mending fences with O’Brien—of the friends he’d had before 1914, she was the only one left alive. But that wasn’t the sort of thing he ought to be saying to Mrs. Hughes—or to anyone here. 

Even having her know that he’d been checking whether he’d be able to serve at table—and, worse yet, the results of that experiment—had him feeling a little itchy. She was quite wrong that anything might change with his arm in a month—or ever, probably—but he’d managed not to say that, either. If they thought his incapacity was only temporary, perhaps they’d all get used to it, somehow, before they realized that it wasn’t. He could always _pretend_ he’d thought it was going to get better.

It was times like these he missed the Wardmaster. If Thomas were still at the 47th, he’d have some sense—as Mrs. Hughes had put it—of how it might turn out. He’d thought a few times about asking Major Clarkson—or Sister Crawley, on the theory that Clarkson might have said something to her—but they were liable to think he was asking for the special treatment he’d already been promised he wouldn’t get. 

At the 47th, the Wardmaster would likely have already figured out how to make it come out right. For a moment, Thomas idly considered writing to him, on the off chance there was something he could do—but it didn’t seem likely that even _his_ reach would extend from a dressing station in France to a medical panel in Yorkshire. And Thomas knew how it turned out, when you asked for too much.

None of _that_ had precisely put him in a frame of mind for a restful day’s sleep, Thomas thought, stubbing out his cigarette. He wandered into the kitchen to see if a cup of tea could be had. His quest was successful—so that was at least _one_ thing going right—and he took it into the servants’ hall.

O’Brien was at one end of the table, and Anna—come down from supervising the housemaids at the morning cleaning to do some mending, it looked like—at the other. Thomas sat at Anna’s end. “What are you doing still up?” she asked him.

“Feeling restless,” he answered. 

“I shouldn’t wonder,” said O’Brien. 

What could she be on about now? “And why’s that, Miss O’Brien?” he asked.

“Only that her ladyship’s going down to the village to talk to Doctor Clarkson, about the troubles they’ve been having at the hospital.”

 _Fuck_. Thomas suddenly felt bone-weary. No cure was quite as effective, for not wanting to go to bed, as finding out there was a problem you had to solve before you could. He might be able to hand this one off fairly easily, though—Anna had put down her sewing was looking at him with concern. Careful to appear unruffled, Thomas told O’Brien, “I’d be surprised if she didn’t speak to him from time to time, being on the hospital board.” Turning to Anna, he said, “Would now be a good time to look at that thing I was telling you about?”

There was no such thing, of course, but fortunately, Anna caught on. “Yes, I have a minute,” she said. 

They ducked into the boot room. “Right,” Thomas said, closing the door behind them. “Is Lady Sybil still up?”

“Thomas,” Anna said warningly.

Right. He supposed it wasn’t entirely delicate, inquiring into a young lady’s sleeping habits. He moved on. “She’ll want to hear about that. Even if she’s gone up, I expect you can make some excuse.”

Anna was looking at him in disbelief.

“To do with her clothes, or something,” Thomas elaborated. The look of disbelief didn’t fade; apparently that wasn’t the part of the problem she was having difficulty with. “Only we’ve just got it sorted, the troubles O’Brien was talking about. If it’s to do with that patient that Nurse Crawley was upset about, I mean. Her ladyship going down there and stirring it up again, it’s not going to look good.”

“Sorted how?” Anna asked suspiciously.

“Rather neatly, if I do say so myself,” Thomas said. “She—Nurse Crawley, I mean— _was_ thinking of asking her ladyship to intervene. I couldn’t tell her myself what a bad idea that would be—and she wasn’t taking a hint—but I thought of suggesting she ask his lordship’s advice. They had a talk about how junior officers don’t get to choose their superiors.”

Anna scoffed; Thomas wasn’t sure why. 

“Well, they don’t,” Thomas said. “And if she wants to be treated like anyone else, that sort of thing isn’t going to help.”

“But you aren’t Lady Sybil’s superior,” Anna said, with excessive patience.

“Of course I’m not. But Nurse Whibley is—unfortunately.”

“Who’s Nurse Whibley?”

Had her name never come up? “The one Nurse Crawley blames for the whole thing. She’s a registry nurse; they automatically outrank the VADs.”

Anna looked puzzled. “You mean it wasn’t—”

She cut herself off abruptly, but Thomas suddenly realized what she’d been about to say. What she’d been thinking all this time. Why he’d noticed a hint of disapproval every time the subject came up. “Right,” he said, his own voice sounding muffled and distant to his ears. “It wasn’t me.” 

“Thomas—”

“That is what you thought, isn’t it? I suppose I never said otherwise. Didn’t think I had to. I forgot that anything that goes wrong anywhere near me is always my fault. How stupid of me.”

Before Anna could try to explain how he’d got it wrong—or rather, how he couldn’t possibly blame her for getting it wrong—he about-faced and left, shutting the door hard behind him. Let Nurse Crawley—Lady Sybil—whoever she was, sort out her own problems.

#

After Thomas stormed off, Anna tried to collect her thoughts. She was sure that neither of them—Thomas or Lady Sybil—had mentioned this Whibley person before. They’d just said “someone.” Why _had_ she assumed it was Thomas?

Well, the fact that Thomas seemed to care about the matter, for one thing. He didn’t generally talk about problems unless he was trying to wriggle his way out of one. Or he hadn’t, at any rate. Since coming back from the war, he’d talked to her about things like missing his friends, wishing he could go back to France, and worrying the Army wouldn’t keep him on—things she couldn’t possibly do anything about. 

But this time, he _had_ asked her to do something—just not for him. It really wasn’t any wonder she’d gotten the wrong idea. Surely he’d see that, if he just thought about it reasonably. How was she to guess that he, of all people, was trying to keep _Lady Sybil_ out of trouble?

If she pointed that out, though, he’d likely accuse her again of blaming him for everything that went wrong. She’d had a good reason for thinking he was the one to blame for what had happened to that poor Lieutenant, with Mrs. Crawley being dragged out of her bed to deal with it, and everything else.

Though at the moment, she couldn’t remember precisely what “everything else” was—just that there were a lot of hints pointing in that direction. Hadn’t Miss O’Brien said—

Before she could complete that thought, the door opened. “Everything all right?” Mr. Bates asked.

“I’m afraid I’ve been a bit stupid,” she confessed. “And…unkind.” 

“Is this to do with Thomas?” Mr. Bates asked. “Miss O’Brien said you’d had a row.”

“Of course she did,” Anna said with a sigh, and brought him up to date, concluding, “I was just realizing that it was Miss O’Brien who put the idea in my head, that he was the one to blame. I don’t know why I never thought to question it.” 

“Hm,” Mr. Bates said, nodding. “I suppose I thought even she might lay off him, after everything that’s happened.”

“He’s right that Lady Sybil will want to know, if her ladyship is all set to interfere,” Anna added. “I’d best go up and tip her off, as he said—though I admit, it’s difficult to get my head round, _him_ trying to keep _her_ out of trouble.”

“NCOs are meant to keep junior officers out of trouble,” Mr. Bates explained. “It’s part of the job.” He shook his head. “I don’t think I’d have ever thought to send her to his lordship for a man-to-man talk…but somehow, it doesn’t surprise me that he _did_ think of it.”

It didn’t really surprise Anna, either. They parted ways, she racing upstairs to Lady Sybil’s room. Lady Sybil was just getting into bed as she arrived. “I’m sorry, my lady,” Anna said. “I didn’t realize you’d gone up—I just came to collect your uniform.”

“That’s all right,” Lady Sybil said. “I’m not really tired—I suppose I haven’t got the knack of sleeping during the day yet.”

“I expect it’s difficult,” Anna said, stalling for time. On the way up here, she’d thought of her excuse for coming in, but not how she’d introduce her real reason. “Everything all topsy-turvy.” 

“A bit. But I can’t grumble—everyone takes her turn on night duty. At least _Papa_ understands that,” she added in an undertone.

Implying that her ladyship didn’t? Perhaps Miss O’Brien had given them the wrong idea about the purpose of her ladyship’s visit to the hospital—Anna wouldn’t put it past her. But she supposed Lady Sybil would want to know about that, too, if she wanted to be treated like anyone else. “Oh, dear,” she said.

“What is it?” Lady Sybil asked, sitting up.

“I probably shouldn’t say, my lady, but Miss O’Brien mentioned that her ladyship plans to speak to Doctor Clarkson today.”

Lady Sybil threw the covers aside and got out of bed. “Oh _drat_. She can’t go and interfere, not when I’ve just settled the other thing.” She went to the chair and retrieved the day dress she’d changed into for breakfast, shucking her nightgown and pulling the dress over her head. “Would you help me put my hair up? It’ll be quicker if you do it.”

Lady Sybil had gotten into the habit of doing her own hair, while she was away on the nursing course, but it sometimes took her more than one try to get it to stay up and not look lopsided. “Of course.” Lady Sybil sat down at the dressing table, and Anna got to work on her hair. “It could well be something else that her ladyship plans to discuss with Doctor Clarkson, my lady,” she said. “Miss O’Brien was mysterious on the subject—as is her way.”

“Let’s hope so,” said Lady Sybil, grimly. “But I’d best find out.”

#

Thomas was sitting by his bedroom window, boots up on the windowsill, angrily smoking, when there was a knock at the door. “What?” he snapped.

The door opened slightly, and he looked over his shoulder. “Are you decent?” Anna asked.

“What are you doing up here?” Thomas asked. Well, it was no business of his if she wanted to get sacked for being in a man’s bedroom. 

“I wanted to talk to you,” she explained, coming the rest of the way in—and ignoring that he hadn’t answered her question. 

Fortunately, he’d only gotten as far as unbuttoning his tunic; he supposed she could stand the sight of his undershirt. “Not sure I want to talk to you,” he said. It reminded him a bit of the time Rawlins had come bothering him when he’d wanted to be alone. Best not tell _Anna_ to fuck off—she was unlikely to take it as well as Rawlins had.

“I wanted to say I was sorry. You’re right—I did assume…that the problem at the hospital had something to do with you. It’s not an excuse, but Miss O’Brien was saying it must have been, and…well, I shouldn’t have paid her any mind. I’m not sure why I did.”

O’Brien. Of course. “And how would she know anything about it?”

Anna sat down on the edge of his bed—honestly, had it slipped her mind she was in a man’s bedroom?—and said, “She told us about Mrs. Crawley having to come to the hospital, the night it all started. And since then, she’d just been hinting she knows things the rest of us don’t—you know how she does.”

“I do,” Thomas said grimly. So did she. “ _Sister Crawley_ had to be sent for that night because the patient needed an operation, and Major Clarkson wanted her to assist in theater. None of us who were on duty had done it before.”

“Oh,” Anna said.

“I expect I could’ve managed, but if it’s not an absolute screaming emergency, they like you to at least see a thing done once before you try it.”

“I suppose they would,” Anna said. “And what about…another thing she said, was about Lady Sybil being asked to stay the next night.”

“She wasn’t asked, she volunteered,” Thomas said. “It’s standard procedure, for a deathbed, to have somebody sit with them—if somebody can be spared for it.” If there wasn’t an extra person available, you checked on them as often as possible. “Then after that, Nurse Fairchild’s turn on night duty ended. They do a week at a time. I’m not sure why they decided Nurse Crawley would take it next. She might’ve asked to. Or it might’ve been Nurse Whibley’s turn.” Thomas didn’t pay a great deal of attention to the nurses’ duty schedule. “Is there anything else you’d like me to explain?” he asked, with some asperity.

Anna bit her lip. “There’s one more thing she’s saying.”

Why wouldn’t there be? “And what’s that?”

“It’s to do with your wound,” she said.

Oh, that. “I’m not making it up. Bates has seen it. So has Major Clarkson. Not to mention all the doctors and nurses between here and the Front.”

“It isn’t that,” she said. “I mean, she did try to suggest something like that, when you first came back, but no one paid her any mind.”

So she had come up with something else. Typical. “What is it, then?”

“She’s been hinting—please don’t bark at me; I’m not the one who’s saying it—but she’s been hinting that, if they relied on you so much at the Dressing Station, it’s a bit funny they’d send you to the Front on that day.”

Thomas’s blood ran cold. “That’s not true,” he said. 

“I didn’t say it was.”

“It isn’t.” They sent _Rouse_ to the Front because they wanted to get rid of him, but it wasn’t like that with Thomas. The Wardmaster had sent him because he was good in No-Man’s Land, and at field triage. What had he said? He needed somebody who could use his fucking head. That was why he’d sent Thomas. “It wasn’t—it wasn’t meant to be the worst day of the entire bloody war,” he added. “It was meant to be the day we started winning.”

Though the Wardmaster hadn’t believed that. He’d known it was going to be bad. He’d sent Thomas, because he’d known it was going to be bad, and then he’d sent him away. Had he—

No, of course not. He hadn’t had a choice; not really. 

#

Sybil raced downstairs, hoping Mama hadn’t left yet. After picking up a hint from Carson, who was in the front hall, she found her in the drawing room, writing a letter. “Mama?”

“Oh, Sybil—I thought you’d gone up.”

“I was just about to,” she said. “But—someone mentioned you were going to talk to Doctor Clarkson today?”

“Yes,” she said. “Why? Is there something you’d like me to bring to his attention?”

“No,” Sybil answered, relieved. “I thought—you don’t mind about me being on night duty, then?”

“Your father doesn’t,” Mama said. “He said you had quite a talk, yesterday.”

“We did.” She hesitated. “In fact, we talked about how—if there _were_ anything I was concerned about—it would be quite wrong of me to go to…well, to a member of the board, in hopes of getting round Doctor Clarkson and Cousin Isobel.” 

Mama gave Sybil one of her skeptical looks.

“Like if Cousin Matthew asked Papa to come between him and his commanding officer,” Sybil added. “That wouldn’t be at all suitable.”

“I don’t see why not, if there was something he could do,” Mama said. “But as it happens, the matter I wanted to speak to Doctor Clarkson about isn’t to do with you at all.”

Oh. That set Sybil back on her heels a bit. Of course, with Mama being on the hospital board, there were any number of reasons she might talk to Doctor Clarkson, without it having to do with Sybil. But.… “Is it about Nurse Whibley? Because if it is, they might still think I put you up to it.”

“No,” Mama said. “As a matter of fact, I wanted to ask him how Thomas is working out.”

“Oh,” Sybil said, vastly relieved. “That’s all right, then.” It wasn’t as though Doctor Clarkson could have any complaints about Corporal Barrow. 

“I’m glad you approve.” 

#

“Barrow?” Clarkson said. Out of all the reasons he’d thought Lady Grantham might be insisting on speaking with him, that one hadn’t even made the list. “He’s doing well.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Lady Grantham said. “I didn’t want you to feel that the family wanted you to keep him on, if he wasn’t working out.”

That hadn’t even occurred to Clarkson until she raised the possibility. The two Nurses Crawley, he knew he was stuck with whether he wanted them or not—and on balance, he did, even at the cost of increased interference from the family—but he wouldn’t have expected them to concern themselves with a former footman. 

Although, he’d not have expected the Dowager Countess to maneuver him into lying to keep Mr. Molesley and young William out of the war, either. Perhaps this was the same sort of thing—or perhaps Lady Grantham had, wonder of wonders, realized how inappropriate it was of the Dowager to have made that request, and wanted to assure him it wasn’t going to happen again. 

“My role in his medical panel is limited,” Clarkson said. “But I shouldn’t worry about him being sent back to France. It’ll be either Home Service, or medical discharge. He’s aware of this.” 

“I see.”

That didn’t seem to be the answer she was looking for. Perhaps she was wondering which it would be—with William bound for the Army sooner or later, they could well be left without a footman. It didn’t seem like a calamity to him—they’d still have as many maids as they wanted—but he supposed they might see it differently. The Dowager certainly had. “I’m afraid I can’t say how it will go—I won’t know myself, until the panel meets.”

That was skirting quite close to an untruth: Clarkson had just about decided that, if the RAMC didn’t need Barrow elsewhere, he’d suggest posting him at the Downton hospital. If he said as much to the other members of the panel, they’d not be likely to recommend medical discharge, even if they had been leaning that way otherwise. 

He’d quite like to hang on to Barrow, because the War Office was in the habit of sending him brand-new orderlies and VADs, and then reassigning them to somewhere busier as soon as they’d begun to get their feet under them. That was why he had to be grateful for the senior Nurse Crawley, although he could have done with being challenged less often. Having an experienced NCO on hand had improved things no end. 

But the last thing he wanted to do was give anyone from the big house the idea he could fix a medical panel. 

“I understand,” her ladyship said. “Well, now that that’s settled, I was also wondering about the young ladies on night duty. Not just Lady Sybil—I’m sure the other girls’ parents would have questions to, if they knew. Perhaps you could explain how you make sure that…well, that everything’s _proper_.”

Now _that_ had been on the list. It was unusually subtle of her ladyship to have opened with something else. “Certainly. The Voluntary Aid Detachment advises us on these matters….”

#

“So Mama said she only wanted to ask Doctor Clarkson about _you_ ,” Nurse Crawley explained as they walked to the hospital that evening.

About _him?_ Damn it—that meant O’Brien’s rumors had reached the family. It ought to turn out all right, since he had not, in fact, done anything—but would it? What if being asked, specifically, if he was a problem led Major Clarkson to think differently of something he hadn’t even noticed at the time? 

Thomas couldn’t think of anything he’d done wrong, but God knew that didn’t matter. 

Oblivious to the effect her comment had had on her audience, Nurse Crawley continued, “Still, I’m glad Anna thought to tell me—it could easily have been something quite different. She didn’t see why I shouldn’t have asked her to intervene, about Nurse Whibley.”

Aware that politeness demanded a response, Thomas dredged up something about how her ladyship had never been in the Army, and couldn’t be expected to understand how these things worked.

“I suppose not—I didn’t understand, either, until Papa explained it to me. Perhaps I should ask him to make her understand.”

That wasn’t a bad idea—and could he get away with suggesting she not interfere in Thomas’s life, either? Well, no, he couldn’t go that far, but…. “To be honest, I could’ve done without her ladyship going and reminding the Major my status there isn’t exactly official.” 

Nurse Crawley glanced over at him. “I didn’t think of that.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” he continued. “It’s just, with my medical panel coming up….”

“Surely they’ll keep you on,” Nurse Crawley said. “Things have been going much more smoothly since you started.”

“Hm,” Thomas said. He hadn’t really thought about the possibility that, if the medical panel went the way he wanted, they might have him do his Home Service _here_. He supposed that would be all right—if he was working there officially, they’d billet him somewhere, and he didn’t mind working at the hospital. It was living on sufferance up at the Abbey that was a problem. 

“It’s true,” Nurse Crawley said. “Cousin Isobel’s mentioned it.”

In that case, Thomas wished she’d “mentioned it” to her ladyship, in order to counteract O’Brien’s calumnies. “That’s good to hear.” 

When they reached the hospital, Sister Crawley briefed him on his cases, finishing up, “And Lieutenant Hurston’s been having a difficult time,” she went on. “We’ve reduced his morphine—you’ll see it on his chart—and as a result, he’s had to begin coming to terms with the loss of his leg. If he has trouble sleeping, he’s allowed an extra half-dose, but if you aren’t terribly busy, you might try talking with him a bit.” That sort of thing was, as Thomas had pointed out earlier, not his best area, but she continued, “He’ll be going to one of the orthopedic hospitals for rehabilitation and eventual fitting of a prosthetic limb—you can give him some idea of what to expect. He seems to be the sort who’d prefer solid facts to commiseration.”

“I see,” Thomas said. That was something he could handle. “I’ll do my best.”

Lieutenant Hurston did, indeed, have trouble sleeping. Thomas planned the medication round so that he’d reach Hurston at the end of it, and asked if his leg was troubling him. “The MO’s authorized a touch more morphine if you fancy it, sir.”

“No, that’s all right. It’s not my leg, really—it’s more the idea of my leg, if that makes sense.”

“It does, sir,” Thomas said, sitting down in a chair someone had left at Hurston’s bedside. “Cigarette?”

“That, I’ll take you up on,” he said, and lit it. “I shouldn’t grumble—I know there’s plenty worse off than me—but I can’t help thinking about my fiancée. I’ll release her from her obligation, of course, but if I know her, she won’t have it. She’s such a lovely, vibrant girl…I can’t bear thinking of how it’ll wear her down, being tied to a cripple, year after year.”

“It may not be as bleak as you’re picturing, sir,” Thomas offered. “I spent some time at the London Orthopedic Hospital—a shoulder wound—and they’re able to do quite a bit for the ones who’ve lost a leg.” 

Hurston gave him a skeptical look. “The nurse said I’d get a wooden one—do those really do you any good?”

“Yes, sir. It takes practice to learn to walk with one, but nearly everyone manages it.”

“Well, if she won’t be pushing me around in a Bath-chair, that’s something,” Hurston said. 

“And your amputation was below the knee, wasn’t it?” Thomas asked. 

He nodded. 

“They all say that if you must have an amputation, that’s the kind to have. Keeping the knee makes a big difference. The physiotherapists encouraged the men with that kind of injury to expect that they’d be able to do most of what they could before.” That was true; they did say that—Thomas had heard them. “I can’t say as that’ll come true in every case—they do like to jolly you along—but I was there long enough to see some go from needing Bath-chairs to up and walking about on their new legs.”

“That’s encouraging,” Hurston said. “I’d wondered if this specialist hospital business was just a matter of—well, stashing you away out of sight.”

“No, sir. They’ll work you quite hard, the physios.” Thomas explained some of the therapies he’d seen. Men with missing limbs, who weren’t ready for a prosthesis, were fitted with sleeves that allowed the stump to be attached to weights and other exercise apparatus. “They have stationary bicycles, for the leg cases, and all sorts. The stump’s got to be completely healed before you can try standing up on it, but if you don’t use it for all that time, the muscles waste away.” Muscle wastage was one of the problems he’d had, with his shoulder, from having it immobilized for months. 

Thomas imparted a few more encouraging details and then left Hurston—in a better frame of mind than when he’d arrived, if Thomas did say so himself.

After a quick check on his other patients, he went outside to smoke a cigarette. The talk with Hurston had taken his mind off his own troubles for a bit, but—as usual—they were still waiting right where he’d left them. It didn’t seem as though her ladyship’s chat with Major Clarkson had borne any poisonous fruit—at least, Thomas had detected nothing unusual in his manner—but Anna’s betrayal still stung. It was bad enough she’d assumed that he’d been the one to make the mistake that led to Turnbull’s death—as though he _would_ —but he wondered if she’d gone as far as believing that nonsense that O’Brien had spouted about the 47th, and his wound.

She’d better not have. It was…nonsense. The Wardmaster—the whole 47th—knew how good he was at ward work, even if _Anna_ didn’t. (A small, logical part of his mind pointed out that Anna had no way of judging for herself whether he was any good as an orderly or not—she’d never seen him work, and wouldn’t know what to look for if she did—but he ignored it.)

The side door opened, and Nurse Crawley stepped out. “Could I possibly scrounge another of those?” she asked, indicating his cigarette.

“Sure.” Thomas offered her the case.

“Thank you,” she said, selecting one. “I don’t dare buy my own in the village. It wouldn’t be ten minutes before word got round to Mama, or one of my sisters—or worse, Granny.”

That was probably true; the village had an insatiable appetite for gossip about the Crawley sisters. Thomas weighed the merits of pointing out that most people would solve the problem by nicking some from the hospital supply, but decided against it. “It’s all right.” He was living rent-free in her family’s house; he supposed he could spare a cigarette now and then. 

He passed her the lighter, and she lit her cigarette. “I heard Captain Prescott’s improving.”

“He’s holding steady, at any rate,” Thomas agreed. Really, he _was_ improving—he’d been allowed a dish of gruel at mid-day—but Thomas didn’t want to jinx it. “Doesn’t happen often, with abdominal wounds.”

“He’s lucky he has you looking after him.” 

That, Thomas thought, might actually be true. 

#

When Thomas got back to the house in the morning, he found a parcel on the servants’ hall table, with his name on it, and a note from Anna:

_Thomas—Picked this up for you in Thirsk. –Anna_

It was an alarm clock—and, he realized, a peace offering. 

Part of him didn’t want to accept it—he could buy his own bloody alarm clock, thank you very much—but it wasn’t as though he suffered from an excess of people wanting to make it up to him after they’d insulted him. “Ta,” he said, when she came down from seeing to the young ladies. “Be nice not to have to look at Bates first thing when I wake up.”

“I’m sure it’s a hardship,” she said. 

“Not sure how much longer I’ll be on night duty,” he added. Sister Crawley had said as much before he’d left that morning—maybe a couple more nights. “Captain Prescott’s doing all right.”

“He’s the one with the—what did you call it? Abdominal wound?”

Thomas nodded. “Not too many of those make it, but he’s holding steady, and several of the others have learned how to do the dressing change now.”

“Good,” she said heartily.

An awkward silence followed. Thomas went on shoveling his breakfast into his mouth. 

“Did you hear that Mr. Matthew’s visiting this weekend?”

Mouth full, Thomas shook his head.

“It’s a shame he couldn’t get away for Christmas—but I suppose they can’t let them all off at the same time. They’ll ask him and Mrs. Crawley to dine here on Saturday—Lady Sybil will be hearing any minute now that her ladyship expects her to put in an appearance.”

“Could be tricky if we get a convoy on Friday,” Thomas noted. They often did. 

“Well, they’ll have you.” 

True enough—and in fact, he’d better plan on being there, if neither Nurse Crawley was available. “That they will.”

#

It would be nice to see Cousin Matthew, Sybil thought, but it still felt very strange to get up in the afternoon and put on an evening frock instead of her uniform. She _was_ going to go down to the hospital after dinner—Mama had, after Sybil appealed to Papa, agreed that she could, and for now, Corporal Barrow was covering for her. 

It was also strange to see Cousin Isobel in an evening dress—not that their uniforms would look any less out-of-place, here in the library. Papa and Cousin Matthew, on the other hand, looked both splendid and official in their red-and-gold mess-dress uniforms. “I wish we had an evening version of our uniforms,” she remarked to Cousin Isobel.

“The men would consider that an example of feminine frivolity, I’m afraid,” said Cousin Isobel. “Never mind that they have them. Besides, nurses don’t often go to the sort of affairs that require evening dress.”

True; men had regimental dinners, but they had nothing of the kind. Sybil wondered idly if Mama would let her invite the other VADs to dine—though perhaps it would seem to be rubbing their faces in her social position, if she did. 

They went in to dinner a few moments later. Thinking about what Corporal Barrow had said, she found herself watching William, as he and Carson served the first course. She’d only been watching for a moment or two when he noticed her watching, and looked at Carson in mute appeal. Carson frowned slightly—she’d not have noticed it if she hadn’t been watching.

Right—one only noticed the wallpaper if something was wrong with it. Guiltily, Sybil went back to ignoring William, and said to Cousin Matthew, “Corporal Barrow sends his regards, by the way.” He’d mentioned that they’d run into one another a time or two, in France.

“Does he?” Matthew asked, helping himself from the dish that William held out. “Perhaps you could tell him I was glad to hear he’s all right. Mother said he’s on medical leave, but also working at the hospital here?”

“That’s right,” Sybil said. “Unofficially, at the moment—though I’m sure we all hope he can stay on once his leave is up.”

“It isn’t quite as simple as that,” Cousin Isobel warned. “The Army may well decide he’s needed more somewhere else.”

“I expect his unit in France is keen to have him back,” Cousin Matthew said. 

Before Sybil could explain that that wasn’t possible, Mama asked, “Are they, really?” 

Her tone was strangely sharp, and Matthew seemed to find it as puzzling as Sybil did. “Well, I haven’t asked, but I imagine so. I certainly got the impression they relied on him there.” 

“As we do, at the hospital here,” Cousin Isobel added, and then explained to Matthew, “We don’t expect he’ll be going back to France—the use of his arm is a bit too limited for that. But his nursing skills are excellent.”

“Well, I’m very glad to hear that,” said Mama. “I had formed a different impression.”

How on Earth would Mama have formed an impression of Corporal Barrow’s nursing skills? Before Sybil could ask, Cousin Matthew said, “He was really rather helpful earlier this year, when there was a bit of a problem with one of my men, who was a patient at the dressing station. Cousin Robert, you’ll understand what I mean when I say he got me in to see the Master Sergeant, on the spur of the moment.”

Papa nodded, he did indeed look impressed. Mary asked, “What’s a Master Sergeant, and why is that so important? Wouldn’t you outrank him?”

Matthew said, “Technically—but a New Army subaltern who pulled rank on a Regular Army Master Sergeant would regret it.”

“He’s a very senior enlisted man,” Papa added. “I’d not have expected one to give me the time of day, when I was a new lieutenant.”

“He gave me the better part of an afternoon,” Cousin Matthew said, “but it was very clearly on Barrow’s account, not mine. He’s something of a rising star—or was, I suppose, if you’re certain he’s not going to be sent back,” he added to Cousin Isobel.

“Well, it seems France’s loss is the Home Service’s gain,” Cousin Isobel said. 

#

Thomas made it back to the house just as they were sitting down to dinner in the servants’ hall—apparently, Nurse Crawley had raced down to the hospital to relieve him as soon as her ladyship excused her. He squeezed into a place between Ethel and the hall-boy, Daisy hurrying to set a plate in front of him. “Why didn’t you say you’d be back for dinner?” she scolded.

“I didn’t know I would,” he answered. “I was covering for Nurse Crawley; she didn’t know when she’d make it to the hospital.”

Carson cleared his throat. “Covering for _whom_?”

Oh, for pity’s sake. “Nurse Crawley,” Thomas repeated. “The younger. As she prefers to be known professionally.” 

Carson sighed lugubriously. 

“Don’t fuss,” Mrs. Hughes said to him. “How was Mr. Matthew?”

They talked about Mr. Matthew for a while, Carson occasionally dropping a tidbit of what he had said or done at dinner, and the rest of them repeating the same sort of things about how nice it was that he was in England and had been given leave, and what a shame it was that it hadn’t been over Christmas.

After quite a lot of that, William said suddenly, “Thomas, why didn’t you tell us you were a rising star in the Army?”

“Because you’d not have believed me,” Thomas answered. “Who said I was?”

“Mr. Matthew,” William said. “At dinner.”

“Why were they talking about me at dinner?” Thomas asked suspiciously. 

“I have no idea,” said Carson. 

“I think it were Lady Sybil who first mentioned you,” William said. “She and Mrs. Crawley talked about how they rely on you at the hospital, and Mr. Matthew said they had at your unit in France, too. And that you helped him with something to do with one of his men.”

“Did he?” Thomas wouldn’t have thought he’d want to bring that up. 

“Do we need to hear all about how important Thomas is?” O’Brien asked. “Again?”

She said it as though they sat around discussing Thomas’s good points every day and twice on Sundays. Thomas was about to point out that they had _never_ , to his knowledge, discussed the topic before, when Anna beat him to the punch, asking, “When was the last time we heard about it, Miss O’Brien?”

O’Brien said things like, “Oh,” and “well,” for a bit, until Carson spoke over her. “I don’t see why we need to discuss it at all.”

“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Hughes. “I wouldn’t say it needs to be a _regular_ topic of conversation, but a member of this household has serving our country with distinction seems worthy of mentioning.”

Thomas half-expected Carson to point out that he was not, strictly speaking, a member of the household, but he only harrumphed. 

“Why thank you, Mrs. Hughes,” Thomas said. “That’s kind of you to say.”

“I daresay everyone likes to feel appreciated now and then,” she replied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Historical note: 
> 
> Infection was a massive problem in the Great War, for all the reasons Thomas describes in the chapter, plus the fact that antibiotics hadn’t been discovered yet. (They had _antiseptics_ , which could be applied to the surface of a wound, but nothing that worked systemically. The key difference in function between a disinfectant and an antibiotic is that an antibiotic kills bacteria, but isn't harmful to the cells of your body. Disinfectants _do_ harm the cells of your body, so they could only be used on the body in limited ways, where the damage they did was less than the damage of infection. If this seems weird, consider cancer treatment today: we can easily kill cancer cells in a tissue culture--in fact, you or I could do it with stuff we have in the house. The hard part is killing the cancer without also killing the patient's healthy cells. The reason cancer drugs have such gnarly side effects is that they target fact-growing cells--which includes all cancer cells, but also things like our hair and the lining of the digestive system.) Preventing infection was vital, because once an infection became systemic, there was nothing to be done. 
> 
> Inability to treat infection was not a new problem, of course, but it was especially frustrating to medical practitioners in the period because they _understood_ infection much better than anyone had before. Bacteria could be readily observed under a microscope; their habits and relationship to illness were well-known, and they could easily be killed in a petri dish, or on medical instruments, or even on the skin. Medical science even had a good grasp on how to prevent infection—although that knowledge was difficult to apply under real-world conditions. But once an infection took hold in the body, the only thing to be done was isolate it if possible (including by amputation of the affected body part) and wait to see if the patient’s immune system managed to fight it off. 
> 
> One book I recommend on the subject is _The Demon Under the Microscope_ , Thomas Hager, 2006, which focuses on the development of sulfa, the world’s first antibiotic drug, but begins the story in the field hospitals of World War One.


	22. Chapter 18: January, 1917

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas has his medical panel, and his situation is regularized.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warnings: Medical gore, discussion of the soldier Thomas mercy-killed at the Front.
> 
> Updated Chapter Count: In editing the latter portion of the fic, I realized that my initial chapter count was off. There are 27 full chapters, 6 sets of letters, and an epilogue.

_24 December, 1916_

_Barrow—_

_Guess your medical panel’s coming up. Some Rupert from that hospital you’re working in asked Maj. Thwait for a report on you. He asked me what to put in it, of course. Hope you haven’t changed your mind about wanting Home Service—if you ask me, they’re thinking about where they can use you. Didn’t know which angle you’d want to come at it from, so I put in everything I could think of._

_Hope you’re doing well, Happy Christmas and all that rot. Jessop sends his regards._

_WT_

Thomas thought of this letter as he waited for his medical panel. They’d got him in the first one of the new year—whether that boded well or ill, Thomas wasn’t sure. Major Clarkson had been noncommittal, doing his physical examination a few days before. 

That he’d written to the 47th was, on balance, a good thing, in Thomas’s estimation. It certainly suggested that O’Brien had succeeded in sowing doubts—through her ladyship, or whatever other circuitous channels she may have come up with—but at least Major Clarkson hadn’t swallowed her lies whole. With the Wardmaster’s hand in it, he could be confident of a good report.

Still, it was quite a long wait for his turn—there were more than a few officers to be seen first—which gave Thomas plenty of time to worry. The Wardmaster could be _mistaken_ —it had been known to happen—and this evening could see Thomas tossed out of the Army for good.

He couldn’t stand to think about what he’d do if that happened, so he instead spent the time planning out answers to every question they could possibly ask—about his experience at the 47th, about his wound, about his reasons for wanting Home Service, everything.

It turned out to be so much wasted effort—although it did keep him from smoking himself sick while he waited. The panel—specifically, the Colonel in the center chair; Major Clarkson and an RAMC Captain sat silently to either side—asked him precisely three questions.

“Corporal Barrow?”

“Yes, sir.”

“RAMC?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You still want Home Service?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right. Stand by for orders—probably get ‘em in the next week or so.”

Was that _it_? “Yes, sir.”

“Dismissed.”

Thomas had been in the room less than a minute; it wasn’t at all clear why they’d needed him there at all. He had a celebratory pint—the hospital wasn’t expecting him on duty, and he didn’t need to watch his sixpences quite so closely now he knew he’d be getting paid again soon—and got the ‘bus back to Downton. 

It was mid-afternoon, and only Anna and Bates were in the servants’ hall—O’Brien had been making herself scarce lately; Thomas cherished a secret fantasy that it was because someone had told her off for spreading lies about him. “How’d it go?” Anna asked.

“Home Service,” Thomas answered. 

“Oh, good—that is what you wanted, wasn’t it?”

Thomas nodded.

“Will you be staying at the hospital here?” she asked.

“Don’t know yet—I’ll get my orders later. By post, I guess.” He wouldn’t mind if he was, he decided—he was doing well at the hospital, and things had gotten better at the house, since Lieutenant Crawley and Sister Crawley had cleared up the matter of whether or not he was any good at his job. He’d be billeted in the village, of course, but perhaps he’d drop by once in a while to see Anna and the rest of them.

He had to answer the same round of questions at least dozen more times, first as everyone trickled in to the servants’ hall for tea, and then again when—for lack of anything better to do—he went down to the hospital afterwards. About the only one who didn’t ask was Sister Crawley. Thomas wondered if that was because she already knew, but restrained himself from asking.

Nurse Crawley, on the other hand, had more to say on the subject than anyone else, and her questions were more difficult to dodge. He managed a few times by pleading urgent—if self-appointed—duties elsewhere, but when they started the walk back up to the house, after doing the patients’ suppers, there was no escape.

“They _ought_ to keep you here,” she said, picking up the thread from one of their earlier conversations on the subject. “You know more than all the other orderlies—and they listen to you. They don’t, always, to Cousin Isobel. She says they don’t like answering to a woman.”

That wasn’t surprising. Besides “robs all my comrades,” the other hoary joke was that RAMC stood for “Run away, Matron’s coming.” Men rejected as physically unfit for overseas service might feel the insult especially keenly. “They could certainly use an NCO here,” Thomas answered. “But that doesn’t mean it’ll be me.” He wondered idly where he’d _like_ to go, if he had a choice—and the 47th wasn’t an option. He reflexively thought of London, but there wasn’t anything in London for him now. He’d been out on day passes a couple of times when he was at the Royal Orthopedic, and he hadn’t even bothered going _near_ the Criterion. 

“I don’t suppose,” Nurse Crawley said, “it would be a good idea to ask Mama to put a word in?”

At least she was _asking_. “I shouldn’t think so. If Major Clarkson wants to keep me on, he’ll already be working on it.” And if he didn’t, Thomas might as well go somewhere else. 

“That’s what I thought,” she said quickly. 

#

“And thank goodness for that,” Mr. Carson said, when Mrs. Hughes told him Thomas’s news. “He’s been hanging about here long enough.”

“I wish you wouldn’t be unkind,” she told him. Anna had told her that Thomas had let on that he felt unwelcome here—a fact that Mrs. Hughes was quite willing to lay at Miss O’Brien’s feet, but Mr. Carson was not entirely blameless in the matter, either. 

“He’s made no secret that this is the outcome he prefers,” Mr. Carson pointed out, fairly enough. Unfortunately, he didn’t leave it at that. “I must say, I don’t believe he’s the sort of person who belongs in this house, but I bear him no ill will, and if he’s found his niche elsewhere, I wish him all the best.”

“ _Elsewhere_ being the operative word, no doubt,” Mrs. Hughes said tartly. Goodness knew, she was fond of Mr. Carson, but she could do without his grudge against Thomas. It hadn’t bothered her as much back when Thomas had been causing more than his share of trouble—though she’d understood even than that it wasn’t anything Thomas _did_ that was at the root of Mr. Carson’s dislike—but he’d already begun to settle down a bit before the war, and since he’d come back, he’d been downright pleasant. At least, when he wasn’t being needled by Miss O’Brien, which would try the patience of a saint. “And they may very well keep him at the hospital here,” she added. 

Mr. Carson glowered at her. “Surely they’d lodge him in the village, with the rest of the hospital staff.”

“The others are all billeted in local houses,” she pointed out. “This is a local house. I don’t see why we wouldn’t do our part.”

The skeptical expression Mr. Carson turned on her was not, she had to admit, entirely undeserved—it was generally understood that the Abbey’s contribution to village projects would be of a different kind than that lent by ordinary households. Organizing concerts to benefit the hospital, for example, rather than billeting the soldiers and nurses who worked there.

“Besides that,” she added, “it’s certainly convenient to have him here, since her ladyship doesn’t like Lady Sybil walking to and from the village on her own, after dark.”

“I’m not certain that walking with _Thomas_ is much of an improvement,” Mr. Carson grumbled.

Mrs. Hughes was tempted to ask if he thought it would be better for Mr. Branson to take her every evening—but the longer _that_ situation escaped his notice, the better. Instead, she said, “It seems quite a good solution to me.” Granted, Lady Sybil had taken a bit of a shine to Thomas when he’d first come to the house—thankfully, that matter also escaped both Mr. Carson’s notice and Thomas’s—but Mrs. Hughes thought she was over that, and even if not, no harm could come of it. Unlike the matter with Mr. Branson.

#

Over the next few days, Thomas continued reporting in at the hospital as usual—he was on days at the moment—and no one said anything about the possibility that he’d be leaving soon. Not even Sister Crawley, when they were working out the duty roster for the following week, and it would have been relevant. 

As a result, it wasn’t a tremendous surprise when Major Clarkson called him into his office one afternoon and informed him that he’d been posted to the Downton Village Hospital. “Your formal orders should be along in the next day or two, but I didn’t see any reason to make you wait for them.”

“Yes, sir. I won’t deny I’ve been wondering.” 

“I didn’t want to say anything until I knew it would work out. It doesn’t do to get ahead of the War Office.”

“Of course, sir.”

Major Clarkson went on to detail Thomas’s duties in his new post, which were mostly what he’d been doing for two months. He would now officially be in charge of the other orderlies, but since it had never seemed to quite occur to any of them that he wasn’t already, it didn’t seem likely to make much of a change. He also explained that Thomas would report officially on Monday—though, as they had a convoy coming tomorrow, he was relieved to hear that Thomas planned to keep working as usual. 

It wasn’t as though Thomas had anything else he’d rather be doing with the last few days of his leave.

About the only important thing he didn’t mention was billeting arrangements. Since it was surely the first thing any of them would ask when he got back up to the house, Thomas felt he had best bring it up. Although he’d rather not have, as it seemed dangerously close to admitting that the problem of keeping a roof over his head had been weighing on him. “Yes, sir,” he said, when Major Clarkson asked him if he had any questions. “Who do I see about a billet?”

“Oh,” he said. “Sister Crawley is the billeting officer—but won’t you just stay on at the Abbey?”

“I don’t like to impose, sir.” 

“Suit yourself,” he said, and dismissed Thomas.

Sister Crawley, when he tracked her down, said almost the same thing—“Do you mean you aren’t going to stay at the Abbey?”

“I haven’t asked, ma’am.” And he wasn’t going to—what was the point of being in the Army if not that sorting out where he was going to sleep was _somebody else’s problem_? “Now everything’s official again—or will be on Monday—it seemed best to go through channels.” 

“Yes, of course,” she said. “I’ll speak to them.”

It wasn’t until they’d parted ways, and Thomas was putting some patients outside for a bit of winter sunshine—the day being mild—that it occurred to him that the “them” Sister Crawley meant she’d speak to was, quite probably, Lord and Lady Grantham. 

Maybe not. She could have meant a billeting committee, or something like that. God knew the village folk enjoyed their committees. But it wasn’t at all hard to imagine Billeting Officer Crawley trotting up to the Abbey and informing her ladyship of where to sign for the couple of shillings a week, or whatever it was, that the Army would pay to put him up.

Thomas halfway wanted to warn her off doing it, and half to find some way of being a fly on the wall when she did.

#

“Got my orders,” Thomas said to Anna as they sat down to dinner. 

“Did you?” she asked, trying to guess whether he was pleased or not by them. She couldn’t really tell—he’d always been hard to read, but since coming back from the war, he was even more closed-off. In some ways, at any rate. Mrs. Hughes had confided to her that Thomas had admitted he was sorry for having raised a fuss over Mr. Bates’s lameness, all those years ago. He had still not seen fit to say anything of the kind to Mr. Bates directly, but it was hard to imagine the “old” Thomas even thinking such a thing, much less saying it to anyone.

“I’ll be staying at the hospital here,” he went on. “Taking charge of the orderlies.”

“Good,” she said. “They’re lucky to have you.”

Thomas tilted his head to one side in acknowledgement—at least he didn’t actually _say_ , Yes, they are. 

“What’s that?” Mr. Bates asked from Anna’s other side. “You’re staying?”

“At the hospital, yes. Ward-Sister Crawley’s the billeting officer—she’ll sort out where I’ll be living.”

Anna noticed Mrs. Hughes and Mr. Carson exchange a look. 

“So you’re back in the Army properly now?” William asked. 

“On Monday I will be,” Thomas answered. 

“Will you do anything special, since you’ve only got a few days of leave left?” Ethel asked, an eager look on her face. Anna had explained to her about Thomas, and she’d claimed to understand, but she went right on flirting with him. Perhaps just for the practice. 

“Just work,” Thomas said, shaking his head. “We’ve got a convoy coming in tomorrow; that always makes for a busy few days.”

William piped up, “Would that be a good time for me to come down and see what it’s like? Like you said,” he added, in response to Thomas’s sharp look his way. 

Anna wasn’t sure that Thomas had been entirely sincere in making that suggestion, but William had taken it seriously; he’d mentioned to her a time or two that he hoped Thomas would tell them when a convoy was coming.

“I suppose,” Thomas said. “I’ll have to check with Major Clarkson, make sure he doesn’t object. We’re expecting it around two in the afternoon.”

“I’ll be there,” William said.

#

“This is Mason,” Thomas said, introducing William to the other orderlies. “He’ll be helping us unload today.” William looked a little startled at that; perhaps he’d imagined himself as an observer only. “He wants to see what the war’s really like, before he gets called up.”

“Not a bad idea,” noted Hodges, who had come to the RAMC from the infantry.

He followed up on this remark with a rattling cough, and as the group spread themselves out along the wall, waiting for the convoy, William asked quietly, “Should he be around sick people?”

“He’s not contagious,” Thomas answered. “He was gassed in Flanders.”

“Oh,” William said, looking at Hodges with a new respect. “When?”

Thomas shrugged. “’15, I think. The lung scarring never goes away.”

William gulped. “But they have gas masks now, don’t they?”

“Sure, if you get it on in time. Or if the Hun doesn’t come up with something new that can get past it.” He nodded at another man who was levering himself up onto the wall, to take the weight off his bad hip. “Keller there was at the Front, too—artilleryman. Don’t ask them about it.”

“All right,” said William, uncertainly. 

Within a few moments, an ambulance came into sight. It was the first of three; a big convoy, by this place’s standards. The day before, they’d sent a large consignment of patients over to the convalescent home at Farley Hall—including, Thomas had been satisfied to see, Captain Prescott. He’d likely be there long enough to see Yorkshire turn green for real—and if he didn’t, it would be because they’d decided to send him home to Maud, or whatever his wife was called.

The ambulance pulled to a stop, and Thomas’s orderlies opened the back doors. The ambulance orderly jumped out first and presented Thomas with a clipboard holding the manifest—this one only had one stretcher-case, but one of the walkers was a head wound; those could take extra watching. He signed off on it and took his copy, noting as he did that the orderlies were helping the walking cases out. 

Except for the head wound, they were still in their filthy and bloodstained uniforms, meaning they’d not stopped anywhere long enough to be issued hospital clothing. William was standing and gaping at them, but had at least had the sense to stand out of the way. 

“What else have we got coming?” Thomas asked the ambulance orderly. 

“One ‘bus has four stretchers; the other two stretchers and four walking cases.” 

Thomas nodded, and called out, “Stand by for six more stretchers.” He added, “Franklin, take Mason, and show him what to do,” he added.

“Yes, Corp,” said Franklin.

The next ambulance was the one with the four stretcher cases. The one William and Franklin ended up with was an amputated leg—and not a neat, surgical amputation, either. The officer was still in his uniform, which meant he’d not been stripped for surgery. The leg had been blown off. 

A good one for William to see, then. “Get one of the MOs to take a look at that one,” Thomas told Franklin. “They’ll want to clean that up in theater sooner or later.” Which it was—sooner, or later—depended on how septic it had managed to get, on the way here. If they could, they’d give him a day or two to recover from the stress of travel. 

Franklin nodded. “Move out,” he told William, and they continued toward the hospital doors.

The next case was an abdomen—and the bloke was already feverish; sweated right through his hospital-issue pyjamas. Either he hadn’t been like that when they’d put him on the boat, Thomas thought, or someone had thought he’d prefer to die in England. “Check with the Ward-Sister about where to put him.” Stashing him in a corner would help keep too many of the other patients from realizing what was happening—not to mention saving wear-and-tear on screens. 

When they’d unloaded the last of the ambulances, Thomas went inside the hospital. Someone had put William on handing out cups of tea to the new arrivals—good; that was well within his skills, and would give him a close look at what passed for a light case around here. Thomas joined Major Clarkson and Sister Crawley as they were leaving the bedside of the abdominal case. He caught Sister Crawley’s eye, and she shook her head. “Not good, I’m afraid.”

“That’s what I thought.” 

They stopped by the leg amputation next. Franklin was removing the soiled dressings, revealing a messy stump that—even over the assorted odors of a new convoy—Thomas could smell from several steps away. 

He was sort of glad it was Major Clarkson, and not him, who had to move in for a closer look. “How are his vitals?”

Franklin reported them—blood pressure a little low, pulse a little more rapid than ideal, but not too bad, given the circumstances. Most importantly, his temperature was only slightly elevated. As ugly as the wound was, there wasn’t a raging, systemic infection—yet. 

And Major Clarkson apparently wanted to keep him that way. “You and Barrow, prep him for theater,” he said. 

“Yes, sir,” they both answered. William had finished handing round the tea, so Thomas got him to help Franklin get the patient—Bledlow, according to his tally-card—back onto a stretcher.

“What’s going on, then?” William asked, as they lugged him into the prep room.

“Take a look at that stump,” Thomas suggested.

William did, gagging at the smell. “Infected?” he managed to ask.

“Yeah. And that’s not a surgical amputation—best guess, he got his foot blown off by a shrapnel shell. The MO will clear out the infected tissue, then trim it to make a tidy stump. It would’ve been a lot better if they’d done it earlier, but every place he passed through on the way here must’ve been too busy. Now the infection’s bad enough it really can’t wait any longer.”

“Will he be all right?” William asked.

With a quick glance to make sure the patient was still out—as he ought to be, given how much morphine they’d put into him for the journey—Thomas answered, “Hard to say. We’ll know more over the next couple of days.”

He sent William out when they started cutting the patient’s uniform off. They didn’t try to save the clothes here, any more than they had at the 47th—by the time they got here, the uniforms were too filthy to be worth saving—but they did have time to make a thorough job of washing the patients, instead of just tossing a bucket or two of water over them and calling that enough. They also deposited the personal effects neatly in a tray, including the collar tabs and lieutenant’s bars. 

They had him about ready to go into theater by the time Major Clarkson and Captain Wren-Lewis came in, to examine the stump again and bicker genially about how far up to make the new amputation. It was an argument Thomas had heard several times before, and Major Clarkson always favored a more radical amputation—though he gathered, from Wren-Lewis’s responses, that this preference had developed suddenly, about a month ago. 

It seemed Major Clarkson had his own theory, about what might have been done differently to save Lieutenant Turnbull’s life. 

Captain Wren-Lewis won the day, this time, and they cut about halfway between the patient’s knee and where his foot would have been, leaving a nice long stump to attach a prosthetic leg to. Assuming no infection escaped the knife, and he lived long enough to get one.

They were nearly finished when there was a commotion in the prep room—a man’s voice, saying, “No, you don’t understand,” and Sister Crawley saying something Thomas didn’t quite catch, in a soothing tone.

“It’ll be all right, sir,” said Leary, one of the orderlies. “Just let me give you this—”

“I don’t want it!” There was a clatter, like an instrument tray being overturned, and a few more sounds of struggle.

“If you can just hold him for a moment,” Sister Crawley said, and the unknown man’s—officer’s—voice rose in wordless protest before falling silent. 

All three of them in the operating theater—minus the patient—stood still for a moment, listening. Finally, Wren-Lewis said, “What’s going on out there?”

Sister Crawley stepped into the theater, a surgical mask held over her face. “One of the patients—a Lieutenant Parslow—has gas gangrene in his right hand,” she explained. “I knew you’d want to operate on him next, but unfortunately, he was not cooperative. We’ve administered half a grain of morphine, and now Private Leary is getting on with the surgical preparation.”

Above his surgical mask, Major Clarkson’s expression was annoyed, but he kept his voice level as he said, “Are you quite certain of your diagnosis, Sister?”

The question was no doubt meant to remind her that, as a mere nurse, she had no business making diagnoses, but Sister Crawley answered, “Yes, as a matter of fact, I am.”

Captain Wren-Lewis jumped in, saying, “If you’d like to finish closing up, Major, I’ll pop out and take a look.”

Major Clarkson sighed heavily. “Yes, all right.”

Wren-Lewis was gone only a moment, and when he came back, all he had to do was nod.

With another sigh, Major Clarkson said, “No need to scrub back in for this one; I’m nearly finished.” 

“Right-o,” said Wren-Lewis. “I’ll start getting ready for the next, then.”

A few minutes later, Leary and another orderly had taken the leg case out, and Thomas was tidying up the operating theater. Leary, fortunately, had taken away the material to be burnt, but Thomas still had to disinfect the operating table and gather up all the instruments to go in the sterilizer. 

When he stepped back into the prep room to change his mask and gown, and scrub his hands again, he took a moment to look at the new patient. His right hand was so puffed up and discolored that it looked like a boxing glove. No wonder Sister Crawley had been confident in her diagnosis, and it had taken Captain Wren-Lewis only a glance to confirm. You only got that kind of swelling with gas gangrene. “Don’t know how I missed that when they were getting off the ‘buses,” Thomas said.

“He was trying to hide it,” Sister Crawley answered. “He kept his jacket over it, because he didn’t want it to be amputated.”

Poor bugger. “Good thing he didn’t succeed.” Gas gangrene was a particularly noxious infection; the rot it caused began deep inside the muscle, giving off gases that inflated the affected body part. Just like a rotting corpse, except that the victim was alive while it happened. Thomas had heard stories of cases bursting like overfilled balloons—though he wasn’t sure if they were actually true or not. 

What he _did_ know was true, was that if every trace of the infected tissue wasn’t removed, the patient would die. With the other types of infection, there was a chance that, if you got most of it, and threw disinfectant on everything you could reach, the patient just might be able to fight the rest of it off on his own. Even a raging, systemic infection like Turnbull had had, every once in a while, one would pull through. Not so with gas gangrene. The only chance was to get rid of it while it was still confined to a limb.

Major Clarkson and Captain Wren-Lewis didn’t argue this time. The swelling and discoloration only extended halfway up the forearm, but they took the arm off at the shoulder, like a joint of beef. Thomas didn’t have a surgical tray big enough to put it in; he had to wrap it up in an old sheet. 

“Looks pretty clean here,” Wren-Lewis observed, as they tidied up the shoulder. 

“Let’s hope so,” said Major Clarkson.

By the time they finished, Thomas was pretty much gasping for a cigarette, but before he had it, he put the arm in the incinerator, cleaned the operating theater, and finally scrubbed his hands as thoroughly as if he were going back in. 

After all that, he decided, he was going to have a cup of tea, as well as a smoke. Going back out into the main ward, he was surprised to find William lurking by the tea-urn. “You’re still here?”

“Uh, Mr. Carson doesn’t need me back until we start on the dinner, so….”

Naturally, Carson would let William wander off in the middle of the day any time he felt like it. Thomas filled a cup of tea and went outside, William trailing after him like a balloon on a string.

“So,” William said, then stopped.

Thomas lit his cigarette, and waited.

“You were operating on those blokes?”

“Major Clarkson and Captain Wren-Lewis were operating. I was assisting.” A little pedantic, but if he’d just said “yes,” the next thing he knew, it would be all over Downton that he had claimed he was a surgeon.

“Right,” said William.

“Not that different from waiting at table, really,” Thomas said. “You just hand them the stuff they need, take away the stuff they’re finished with. Except if you leave something on the table from one course to the next, somebody could die.” Taking another drag on his cigarette, he added, “And not just in the sense that Carson might kill you.”

William chortled, then assumed a guilty expression and said, “He’s not that bad.”

“Maybe to you he’s not. Me, when I got to training camp, I couldn’t believe how pleasant and reasonable the drill sergeants were.” Thomas shrugged his good shoulder and took a sip of his tea. “Speaking of,” he added, “the RAMC isn’t taking A-ones anymore.” Major Clarkson had mentioned it, when they were in the operating theater—Thomas hadn’t even thought about the possibility that William was here angling for a job. “In case you were wondering.”

“That’s all right,” William said.

“You could try the Transport Corps,” Thomas went on. He’d given it a bit of thought, while he’d been cleaning up the theater. “I don’t know if they’re taking A-ones either, but it might be worth a shot.”

“Why?” William asked suspiciously. 

“It’s mostly behind the lines. They take rations and stuff up to the Front, but they do it at night—same time we move wounded—so it’s not too bad,” he explained. “You could look after the horses.”

William gave him a disgusted look. “Don’t start.”

Start _what_? “I thought you liked horses.” He was nearly sure William had said something about that, sometime. It just might be that most of the blokes who were keen on horses had signed up for the cavalry and been killed ages ago, before the General Staff had figured out that machine guns couldn’t be intimidated by a cavalry charge. 

“That’s not the point.” 

“Then what is the point?”

“I’m not looking to stay behind the lines,” William said. “The only reason I haven’t joined up yet is I promised me dad—I’m no’ a coward.”

Really— _that_ was what he was fussed about? “Between being a coward, and being cannon fodder, there’s a bit of room to maneuver.”

“I’m not saying it’s wrong to take a job behind the lines, or owt like that,” William added, earnestly. “But it’s not what suits me. I want to fight. I want to make a difference.”

Oh, Christ, it was like that, was it? “You won’t,” Thomas said coldly. “Do you know what ‘war of attrition’ means? It means both sides take turns throwing men into a meat grinder, and whoever runs out first loses. Nothing you do over there is going to _make a difference_.”

William scoffed.

Softening his tone, Thomas said, “It really isn’t. And the sooner you get used to the idea, the more chance you have of coming back alive. It’s the blokes who want it to be like a story who get themselves killed—or worse, get their mates killed.”

William looked at him, wide-eyed. “Did you…?”

Get anyone killed, did he mean? Well, at least he was _asking_. “No—but I’ve seen it happen.” He wondered if Lieutenant Sherwood had been back at the Front by July. And if he’d wised up. “Bloke from my section got killed, the same day I was shot.” Rawlins and the rest had decided to keep it from him, but Plank had let it slip, in a letter that was mostly about the damned cat. “But that’s just bad luck. Most of us made it through the day, because we didn’t take any stupid risks. And because we weren’t bloody infantry.” 

William made a small, questioning sound.

“Some of them—a lot of them—didn’t even make it out of the trench. They were shot as soon as they got their heads up over the parapet, and just…fell backwards, off the ladders, like….” Thomas couldn’t think of a comparison. “Like nothing on this Earth. There was this one bloke.” Thomas stopped, and lit another cigarette. 

“What?” William asked.

“You’ve never killed a man.” It wasn’t a question; William hadn’t been over there, so he hadn’t. “I have.” Thomas hadn’t really thought of it that way before. He hadn’t forgotten what happened; he just hadn’t thought about it. “One of ours. He made it as far as the wire—our wire. Then he caught a packet. Probably shrapnel. Made a hole big enough for his guts to fall out. He started crawling back to the trench, but his guts were caught on the wire. Got to the parapet, and then he hit the end of the leash.” Thomas gestured, like someone pulling on a rope and coming up short.

“No idea how he kept moving through all that, but he was alive. So I injected him with enough morphine to stop an elephant, and once he was dead we cut him loose and moved him out of the way.”

Looking green around the gills, William said, “It had to have been a mercy, to the poor soul.”

“Sure,” Thomas said, drawing on his cigarette. “Nowt else to do—even if the Boche had agreed to stop shooting long enough for us to go out and collect the rest of him, nobody could put a mess like that back together again. Not all the king’s horses or all the king’s men. Wasn’t like I murdered him. But I did kill him.”

William looked away, scuffing his toe in the dust of the road.

“And that’s what you mean, when you say making a difference, right? Killing somebody.”

William did some more toe-scuffing. “I guess. I mean…an enemy.”

Thomas wasn’t sure how much difference that made—not really. Most of “the enemy” probably had no more idea what the war was all about than William did. 

But then again, what did he care? William was nothing to him—just a bloke he used to work with. “Suit yourself,” he said. “It’s probably too late anyway, for you to get anything other than infantry. You’ll be called up any day.” Just in time for the spring offensives. 

“I know I will,” William blustered. 

The poor bastard.

#

“You’re awfully quiet,” Anna said to William. He was in the servants’ hall, waiting for Mr. Carson to tell him it was time to start getting the dining room ready for dinner. “How was it?”

“Fine,” he said. “It was fine.” In fact, there’d been several times it was all he could do not to be sick. When the ambulances were first opened up, and the smell came out. When he saw that poor gentleman’s leg—what was left of it. When he’d taken a look behind the screens, just as Mrs. Crawley was taking the bandages off the man who’d been shot in the stomach. 

When Thomas told that awful, awful story, about the _other_ man who’d been shot in the stomach. It couldn’t possibly be true—could it? “Did Thomas ever tell you,” he began, then stopped. Not even Thomas would tell a _woman_ a story like that. 

“Tell me what?”

He couldn’t ask Anna if Thomas had ever told her about the time he killed a man, either. “About the day he was shot?”

“Not really,” she answered. “He says he doesn’t remember much—they kept giving him morphine.”

“I mean—before he was shot.”

“No,” Anna said. “Why? Did he tell you?”

“A bit.” William wished he hadn’t brought it up. “I just…wondered if it can have been as bad as he said.” He shook his head. “He were probably just trying to scare me.” That was something Thomas would do.

Anna hesitated. Finally, she said, “Maybe,” but she didn’t sound like she believed it. 

William changed the subject. “Did he tell you he helps them operate on people, down there?”

“He mentioned something about it,” Anna said, seeming as relieved as he was to be discussing something else. “I didn’t know if he did it regularly.”

“He did some today. Two, um, amputations.” William hadn’t been too far away when Mrs. Crawley and an RAMC man had frog-marched the second one in; he’d caught a glimpse of the bloke’s hand, purple-black, the fingers like blood puddings. 

Anna nodded encouragingly, but William didn’t want to think about the amputations anymore. “He, um, he really seems to know what he’s doing. In the hospital, I mean.” 

“Of course he does,” Anna said, a little sharply.

“I know,” William said. He’d been there when Mrs. Crawley and Mr. Matthew said so. “I just mean…he’s like a proper soldier.” William had really thought about it, but he supposed he’d been expecting that Thomas went down there every day and just sort of hung about, waiting to be told to do some minor chore or other.

Sort of like William had done today. “I mean,” he continued, “he’s sort of…in charge.” It wasn’t surprising that Thomas would act like he was in charge—he did that here, too—but in the hospital _everyone_ _else_ acted like he was, too. Even after he’d left the room. 

Franklin, the bloke who’d been showing him around—the bloke Thomas _had assigned_ to show him around—had gone right up to Dr. Clarkson, after they’d put their patient on a bed, and said, “Corporal Barrow says you should have a look at this one,” and _Doctor Clarkson had done it._

#

“Mrs. Crawley, my lord,” Carson announced, showing her into the drawing room.

“Ah,” Robert said, standing up. “I’m afraid Lady Grantham is out.” He hoped she hadn’t invited Cousin Isobel to tea, or something, and forgotten. It wasn’t like her, but she did seem to have so many engagements these days.

Although if Cora had asked her to tea, she was too late for it, and for dinner, she was both too early and not dressed. 

“That’s quite all right,” she said, clutching her handbag in front of her. “I’m here in an official capacity.” 

Oh, God. Which official capacity was that? She seemed to be in the chair for every committee in the village—at least, all the ones that Cora wasn’t. Sometimes, Robert thought it would be easier just to give her his checkbook. “I see. Shall we sit?” he asked, gesturing toward a chair. He knew from experience that not offering her a seat would have no effect on the duration of the interview—or the size of the check he ended up writing. 

Sitting, she said, “As you may have heard, Corporal Barrow has been officially posted to our hospital.”

This was a new one. “Yes, I think my valet mentioned it.” One of the servants, at any rate. He waited patiently to hear what he—or his checkbook—had to do with it. 

“So I’ve come to formalize his billeting arrangements.” He must’ve looked blank, because she added, “As billeting officer.”

That really didn’t answer any of his questions, but Robert said, “Yes?”

She took some forms out of her handbag and passed them to him. “All the details are there, and I’ve marked where you need to sign.”

Looking over the forms, it gradually dawned on Robert that they were, apparently, billeting Thomas—Corporal Barrow, he should say— _here_. It did make a certain kind of sense, especially with Sybil going back and forth between the house and the village at all hours, but it _did_ seem the sort of thing they might have made a pretense of asking him about, before it was decided. Speaking of formalities. 

On the other hand, at least it wasn’t costing him anything. In fact, they’d be making a few shillings a week off of the proposition—except that Cora, or Sybil, or whoever would doubtless have already pledged them as a donation to the hospital. He signed where Cousin Isobel had marked, and handed the forms back.

She glanced at them, giving a satisfied nod, and tucked them back in her handbag. “All right, then.” She stood up. “I shan’t trouble you any further.”

Robert sincerely doubted that—she always found _something_ to trouble him about—but stood up, and wished her a good day.

#

“Thank you, Private Franklin,” Sybil said, when the house came into sight. “I can make it from here.” 

“Goodnight, Nurse,” he said, touching his cap. 

“Goodnight,” she replied.

She had actually left a little early—not wanting to keep Private Franklin from his dinner just to walk her home—and when Carson let her in the front door, Mama was coming down the stairway. “Sybil, you’re just in time to change,” she said. 

She’d been afraid of that. “Yes, Mama.” To Carson, she added, “Corporal Barrow’s staying late at the hospital, to look after the new patients who arrived today. He asked if you could let the kitchen staff know he’ll be coming back about the time they begin work in the morning.”

Was it her imagination, or did Carson’s expression become a little fixed. “Yes, my lady.”

Mama jumped in. “Do you mean he left you to walk all the way here on your own?”

“He had one of the other orderlies walk with me,” Sybil explained. “Even though it was completely unnecessary.”

“I beg to differ,” said Mama. “I’m glad someone showed some sense.” Sybil sighed, and was about to protest, but Mama cut her off, saying, “Go and change. I’ll tell Mrs. Patmore to hold dinner ten minutes.”

So Sybil flew up the stairs, washed her face and hands, and threw her simplest dinner dress over her head. When she ducked across the hall into the boudoir, to find somebody who could fasten it in the back, Anna was still there.

“Are you still dressing?”she asked Mary and Edith. “I got home a minute ago, and I’m nearly ready.”

“Some of us like to make an effort,” said Edith, tartly.

“Some of us need to,” Mary shot back. 

Meanwhile, Anna had done up her dress. “Would you like me to do something else with your hair, my lady?”

“No, thank you,” Sybil said. It was only the family tonight; the simple knot she wore under her nurse’s cap—which Anna had taught her—would do. 

Mary dabbed on a little perfume, and they all went down. When they entered the library, Papa was saying, “Well, if you didn’t, I don’t know who did.”

Then they both turned and looked at her. “Good evening,” she said. “What is it you think I’ve done?”

Mama and Papa glanced at each other, and finally Papa said, “We’re wondering how Cousin Isobel got the impression we’d agreed to billet Thomas here.” 

“I don’t know why we wouldn’t,” Sybil said—particularly given the fuss Mama had just made about him not walking home with her. “But we didn’t discuss it,” she added, shaking her head in response to the tray of sherry Carson was holding out. 

Carson withdrew, and Mama said, “Well, _someone_ must have.”

“Don’t look at me,” said Edith. “I don’t think I’ve spoken to Cousin Isobel since she and Cousin Matthew were here.”

“Perhaps she spoke with Mrs. Hughes,” Mary suggested.

Carson, over by the drinks trolley, made a sound which caused everyone to look at him. “I beg your pardon, my lord, my ladies. But Mrs. Hughes would not have presumed to answer such a suggestion without consulting your ladyship.”

“Well, then, it’s a mystery!” said Mary.

“I don’t see why it’s a problem,” Sybil said. “We could billet the entire hospital staff and barely notice.”

“That isn’t the point,” said Papa. 

#

Mrs. Hughes could see right away that Mr. Carson was in a temper when he came down from serving the upstairs dinner, and brusquely informed Mrs. Patmore that they’d eat in a quarter of an hour. He immediately retired to his pantry, and she joined him there. “Whatever is the matter with you?”

“Thomas,” he said, pouring a generous measure of sherry into a glass.

“He isn’t even here,” she pointed out. “Daisy said something about him staying late at the hospital.”

“I’m aware,” Mr. Carson said. “He sent _Lady Sybil_ with that message.” 

Oh, dear. “I’m not sure you can really say he _sent_ her,” Mrs. Hughes pointed out. “She was coming here anyway.”

“That isn’t the worst of it,” Carson said, darkly. “Did you know that he’s being billeted here?”

“No, I hadn’t heard, but I think it’s a good idea,” she answered. “When was that decided?”

“It wasn’t.” He went on to explain that Mrs. Crawley—in her person as village billeting officer—had turned up after tea-time with Army forms to be signed. His lordship had signed them, believing that her ladyship must have agreed to this arrangement and forgotten to mention it. They had evidently compared notes before dinner, and realized that neither of them had known anything about it. Nor had Lady Sybil—who would have been Mrs. Hughes’s next guess.

“It was suggested,” Mr. Carson added delicately, “that she may have spoken to you, and you said something which—inadvertently—gave the impression that the matter was settled.”

“She hasn’t spoken to me about it,” Mrs. Hughes said. “I’d have told her to talk to one of them.”

“Of course _you_ would have.”

She caught the slight stress he put on _you_. “Then who do you think did?”

Mr. Carson gave her a baleful look. 

#

“Not yet, but it won’t be long,” Thomas said to Sister Crawley, when she came in to relieve him, several hours before dawn. “I gave him half a grain of morphine about an hour ago. Should hold him.” Hold him the rest of his life—they were talking about the abdominal wound in the corner. 

She nodded. “And how are Lieutenants Bledlow and Parslow?”

Those were the two amputations from earlier in the day—Thomas had forgotten which one was which. “They’re both doing well enough. The leg came round, talked a bit, had some tea and toast. The other one’s stayed out, but his temperature’s coming down. And no surprises from anyone else.”

“Good,” she said. “Oh, and I got your billet sorted.”

Really? When? “Yes, ma’am?”

“I stopped by the Abbey before I went home,” she explained. “Lord Grantham seemed to have been expecting you’d stay.”

That was a surprise, but Thomas wasn’t going to argue with her about it. “Yes, ma’am.”

Shortly after that, he started the walk up the house. It was bitterly cold—much colder than it was when he made this trip at the usual time—and he thought idly that if he’d been billeted somewhere else, he could at least console himself with the thought that he wouldn’t be making this hike all winter. 

There was nothing for it, though—he wasn’t going to start complaining about his billet the moment he’d got one. 

The walk also gave him plenty of time to think about the possibility that he’d get there and find the house locked up tight, and Daisy and everyone off lighting the bedroom fires. He’d asked Nurse Crawley to pass word of his schedule downstairs, partly in hopes of avoiding just such a scenario—the other reason was to avoid being accused of expecting someone to wait up until he decided to show up—but the message could easily have gone astray, or been forgotten. Thomas had no idea at what point in the morning the kitchen workers usually got around to opening the kitchen door. 

By the time he reached the house, he’d more-or-less decided that this outcome was inevitable, and had planned several choice things to say to Daisy—or whomever it was—when she finally turned up to let him in. Likely after he’d burned all his cigarettes for warmth, and was well on the way to a serious case of hypothermia. 

It was not exactly a disappointment, but something of a letdown, perhaps, when he saw lights on in the kitchen, and the doorknob turned easily in his hand. Mrs. Patmore and the kitchen maids were, in fact, sitting down to breakfast, and at his entrance, Daisy popped up and started fixing him a plate, saying, “There you are. We weren’t sure when you’d be back. How were things at the hospital?”

“Fine,” he said cautiously, unwinding his muffler. 

“Do you mind eating in here?” Daisy continued—it wasn’t at all clear whether she’d heard his response, or even expected one. “Only we haven’t lit the fire in the servants’ hall yet.”

Just beginning to thaw out, Thomas briefly considered whether standing on his dignity was worth going into a freezing-cold room and eating by himself. “No, I don’t mind.”

The kitchen girls were full of chatter as they drank their tea and ate their porridge—mostly about the day’s work ahead—and Thomas was suddenly and vividly reminded of the time he’d breakfasted in the kitchen at Captain Allenby’s billet, in France. 

“Will you be working again tonight?” Daisy asked at one point.

“I don’t think so.” The abdominal case would be dead long before the end of the day, and it didn’t seem likely any of the others would require special care. “They’re expecting me back after lunch, and as long as nothing’s come up, I’ll be off-duty at the usual time.”

“Seems like they have you down there all hours,” one of the other kitchen maids observed.

“Well, if there’s anyone needing special watching, they want either me or the Ward Sister there at night,” Thomas explained. “But otherwise, it’s better to have us both there in the day. So when something changes—like getting new patients—we have to shuffle things around a bit.”

Before long, the kitchen staff had finished their breakfasts, and Mrs. Patmore dispatched them to various tasks. Daisy was assigned to start cooking the servants’ hall breakfast, and while she got on with it, Thomas sat drinking a second cup of tea. 

As she bustled about, she said, “William said it were interesting, down at the hospital yesterday.”

“Did he?” Thomas asked vaguely. He ought to be getting to bed—lunchtime would be here sooner than he liked—but the lulling warmth of the kitchen made him reluctant to start the hike up to the top of the house.

“Do you suppose,” she began, then stopped.

“Hm?”

“D’you suppose he might be able to work there, instead of going to the Front?” she asked in a rush.

Oh, that. Thomas shook his head. “Not unless he’s secretly a nearsighted asthmatic with flat feet and scoliosis, no.” Daisy gave him a sharp look, and he quickly explained, “They aren’t taking fit young men for hospital work—they weren’t even when I joined up, and it’s worse now. Pretty much the only way they’ll take a man of conscription age is if he’s been turned down for combat service.” Or if he was a doctor, presumably, but it wasn’t like that would help William. 

“Oh,” said Daisy. 

“Yeah,” Thomas said. In fact, he’d heard from Rawlins that there was talk of transferring men who were _already_ in the RAMC to the infantry, whether they liked it or not, and allowing women nurses closer to the Front to replace them. “Anyway, he says he’s keen to fight.”

“I know.” Daisy sighed. 

“I’m not sure there’s much to be done now, even if he’d see sense about it,” Thomas added. “His old dad really missed a trick there, convincing him to leave it so long.”

Daisy explained, “He says—William says he says—that if he was called up and something happened, it would just be fate, but if he let him join up, and something happened, he’d never forgive himself.”

“I heard,” Thomas said. Something like that, anyway. “But if you volunteer early, you can ask for something less dangerous. When you’re called up, you don’t get any choice, and ten to one they’ll put him in the infantry, unless he’s got some special skills he’s been keeping a secret.” Actually, the odds were probably a lot worse than ten to one. “I said he might try for Transport Corps, since he knows horses, but it’s likely too late for that.”

Daisy frowned. “I thought they weren’t using horses much,” she said.

“Not for fighting, no. Transport Corps is in charge of moving stuff around. They use plenty of horses for that—heavy ones; the kind he’s used to.”

“And…he wouldn’t be in danger?”

“Not as much. They take stuff to the Front, but they aren’t stuck there day in and day out.” Thomas considered what else he knew about the Transport Corps. “I’m not sure what they do when there’s a push on, but it can’t be as bad was what the infantry was doing.” There had probably been some of them standing by in the support trenches, waiting to take ammunition and whatever-else to the Hun’s forward trenches, after the infantry had strolled across and consolidated them. God only knew what they’d been told to do instead, when it became clear that was not how the day was going to go—but they hadn’t been out in the first waves of the advance, getting mowed down like corn before the scythe. 

The next thing he was aware of was Daisy touching his hand. “Thomas? Are you all right?”

He shook himself slightly, and essayed a reassuring smile. “Fine,” he said. “But I’d best get to bed.”

Daisy nodded quickly. “Goodnight—er, morning.”

“You, too,” he said, and escaped up the stairs.

#

“Corporal Barrow isn’t gracing us with his presence this morning?” Mr. Carson asked, as they sat down to breakfast. Even considering the subject, Anna thought he sounded more than usually sarcastic.

“He had breakfast with us, and went up to bed,” explained Daisy, who was bringing in the toast. “He’s expected back at the hospital after lunch. He says he’ll be back for dinner, unless something changes.”

Mr. Carson scoffed, and said something about being surprised Thomas had, “Entrusted that message to you, and not his lordship, or Lady Mary.”

Daisy gave Anna a puzzled look, which she passed on to Mr. Bates, who explained in an undertone, “Apparently, he asked Lady Sybil to tell Mr. Carson he wouldn’t be back last night.” 

“Oh.” Anna could understand both why he’d done so, and why Mr. Carson thought he shouldn’t have, but it seemed a bit much for Mr. Carson to still be annoyed about it this morning. 

Mrs. Hughes said, “Perhaps we ought to give him the spare key, since he comes and goes at all hours.”

“Oh, is he staying?” Ethel asked. 

“Apparently,” Mr. Carson rumbled. “Though no one is entirely sure why.”

Anna glanced at Mr. Bates, but he gave a small shake of his head—he didn’t know what Mr. Carson was on about, either.

The talk turned to other subjects, and Anna’s curiosity was still unsatisfied when Thomas came down to lunch a few hours later—neat in his uniform, but noticeably bleary-eyed. “Are you all right?” she asked him, as he slipped into the seat next to hers.

“Didn’t sleep well,” he said, reaching for the cold meat. “I’ll be all right once I get going, but I hope they don’t need me tonight.”

For his sake, Anna hoped not, too. 

He did perk up a little as the meal went on—enough to notice Mr. Carson looking daggers at him from the head of the table. “I guess he’s heard about my billet,” Thomas observed, glumly.

Anna nodded, and hesitated. “He’s also not pleased you sent Lady Sybil with the message about being late.”

Thomas sighed. “I didn’t think he would be, but if I’d telephoned, one of the family might just as easily have picked up, and he’d not have liked that any better.”

Anna hadn’t thought of that. 

Thomas went on, “I could’ve told Private Franklin to go round the back of the house after seeing Nurse Crawley to the door, and find someone to tell, but then he’d’ve been interrupting at the busiest part of the day. And if I’d sent one of the other orderlies at some other time, Mr. Carson would _still_ have found a reason to be annoyed about it, and whoever I’d made do it would be annoyed about it to, since they all knew perfectly well that Nurse Crawley was coming up here anyway, and there’s no real reason in the world why she couldn’t just tell someone!”

Thomas’s voice had risen in volume as he worked his way through this tirade, and by the end of it, everybody was looking at him. Hunching his shoulders, he muttered, “Well, there isn’t,” and stuffed a forkful of meat into his mouth. 

At the head of the table, Mrs. Hughes and Mr. Carson exchanged a look. “Thomas,” Mrs. Hughes said delicately.

From the glare Thomas shot her, Anna thought it was lucky his mouth was full—otherwise, he’d surely have said something to dig himself in deeper.

As it was, Mrs. Hughes was able to continue, uninterrupted. “I’m sure Mr. Carson understands you can’t make extra work for the Army men, in order to cater to our sensibilities.”

Thomas, still regarding her with suspicion, swallowed and said, “No, Mrs. Hughes, I really can’t.”

Mr. Carson cleared his throat. “Given your feelings,” he said ponderously, “I wonder why you thought it a good idea that you go on staying here.”

“I didn’t,” Thomas said flatly. “Mrs. Crawley did. I also didn’t think it a good idea to argue with her about it. But if you’d like to, I certainly shan’t try to stop you.” He pushed his chair back with a loud scrape, and added, “Now, if no one objects, I’ll just be off and serve my country.”

It might be for the best that he’d gone—Mr. Carson continued to growl and sputter for the rest of the meal—but he’d have been wiser to skip the parting shot, in Anna’s opinion. When they left the table, she joined Mrs. Hughes in her sitting room, and said apologetically, “Thomas mentioned, when we sat down, that he hadn’t slept well.” 

Mrs. Hughes nodded understanding. “I’d wondered—he’s never been one to fly off the handle.”

“No,” Anna agreed, although she couldn’t help thinking about how, about a month ago, he’d barked at her about being blamed for everything that went wrong around here. “The work he’s doing now can be…upsetting, I think,” she offered. “William was telling me about some of the things he saw at the hospital yesterday, and…well, I suppose some of the things that Mr. Carson worries about seem….” Anna couldn’t find a good way to end that sentence, and so let it trail off. 

“Yes,” Mrs. Hughes said, “I’m sure they do.” She sighed. “It isn’t just that, though,” she added. “There’s a certain amount of…confusion over just how it came to be decided that Thomas would be billeted here.” She went on to explain something about his lordship and her ladyship each thinking the other must have agreed to it, and discovering at dinner last night that neither of them had. “It seems a perfectly sensible arrangement to me, particularly since he and Lady Sybil usually come and go at the same times, but Mr. Carson seems to think it was all Thomas’s idea.”

“I don’t think that’s likely,” Anna said tactfully. “It’s a long way to walk in the winter, for one thing.” 

“For _one_ thing,” Mrs. Hughes echoed, in agreement. 

“And all he said to me on the subject was something about how it was one of the perks of being in the Army, that it was the billeting officer’s job to worry about things like that.” She had, in fact, been trying to get a sense of whether he _wanted_ to go on living here or not. She rather thought not, though refraining from saying so was unusually tactful, for him. 

#

Thomas did his best to shed his bad mood on the walk down to the hospital, but he was not entirely successful. So Mr. Carson thought it had been _his_ idea to stay on at the Abbey? In his haste to blame Thomas for it, he’d apparently overlooked the fact that there was no reason on God’s green Earth that he’d _want_ to. Perhaps Thomas ought to spell it out for him.

Fortunately, the first thing Sister Crawley said to him when he reported in was the welcome news that no new emergencies had developed, and he’d be going off-duty at supper time. Granted, that meant going back to the house, but perhaps he’d skip it, and go straight up to bed while Carson was up in the dining room. If he was really lucky, he could scrounge something in the kitchen on his way up. 

The abdominal case had died, of course, but the head wound seemed _compos mentis_ , and the two surgical cases from yesterday were recovering well. “Lieutenant Parslow is having a difficult time, I’m afraid,” Sister Crawley went on. “We spoke a bit today, when I did his dressing change, but I’m afraid he holds me responsible for the loss of his arm. Perhaps you could try the next one. You did rather well with Lieutenant Hurston, last month.”

“I can try,” Thomas said doubtfully. Hurston was the below-the-knee amputation; all Thomas had done was tell him, truthfully, that he’d probably walk again. “But I’m afraid the facts aren’t quite as reassuring, with an arm amputation at the shoulder.”

“No, I suppose not,” she agreed. “Well, even if you can’t find anything to say that will help him, he’d probably rather not have to speak to me again just yet.”

So Thomas was stuck with his dressing change. It came right after tea, which the Lieutenant refused Nurse Whibley’s help in drinking, and consequently slopped down his front. He was not in a terribly good mood, when Thomas turned up with a dressing-tray and a clean pyjama shirt to put on him after. “What do you want?” he asked, glaring at Thomas.

“Change your dressing, sir,” Thomas said. 

Lieutenant Parslow turned his head the other way. “I don’t want it changed.”

“Medical Officer’s orders, sir. I can fetch him, if you’d like to discuss it.”

Parslow seemed more apathetic than oppositional, and as Thomas had expected, he realized that submitting to having his dressing change took less effort than arguing with a superior officer and still having it changed. “Oh, just get it over with.”

When Thomas cut away the old dressing, the incision showed very little swelling or redness, and nothing oozing. “This looks like it’s coming along all right.” 

Lieutenant Parslow looked down at it with undisguised loathing. “Does it.” 

“No signs of infection, I mean, sir.” 

“Supposed to be happy about that, am I?”

“Only if you want to live,” Thomas said. 

Parslow scoffed. 

“And if you don’t, you can always kill yourself later,” Thomas added, practically. 

“That’s not exactly funny,” Parslow said. 

“It’s not exactly a joke, sir,” Thomas answered. “If we let it get infected, and then you make up your mind life’s worth living with one arm, you might not have any choice in the matter. Looking after it’s the best way to keep your options open.”

Parslow absorbed this news, and said gloomily, “Such as they are.” He laughed bitterly. “Guess what I did before the war. Go on, guess.”

While he was swabbing the wound with antiseptic, Thomas thought about what profession would be the worst for losing one’s arm. His first thought was surgeon, but Parslow wasn’t RAMC. Finally, he settled on, “Concert pianist.”

Parslow gave him a startled look. “Violin, actually.” 

That was just as bad. In fact, Thomas couldn’t think of a musical instrument that could be played one-handed, except maybe the kazoo. “That’s quite a blow.” 

“That’s what I was trying to tell the nurse, when she knocked me out,” Parslow went on. “My life’s over now anyway. I was better off taking my chances.” 

“Begging your pardon, sir, but there weren’t any chances to take. If that arm didn’t come off, you’d be dead,” Thomas said bluntly. 

“The nurse said that, but you can’t be sure,” Parslow objected. “My grandfather was a farmer—he’s full of stories about beasts pulling through, after the veterinarian swore they were done for.” 

“They didn’t have gas gangrene.” Maybe Thomas should have gotten one of the MOs over here after all, to explain it. “I’m sorry, sir, but there really wasn’t any other way.” He began applying the new dressing. “Did you ever see a corpse that’d been out in the sun for a few days?”

Parslow scoffed. “Who hasn’t?”

True; it wasn’t the sort of thing you really had to ask, if you knew someone had been at the Front. “So you know how they swell up.”

Parslow nodded.

“That’s what was happening to your hand. It was dead and rotting, and the only way to stop it killing the rest of you was to cut it off.” 

Parslow was silent for a long moment, his only sign of life obediently raising his other—or rather, his only—arm so that Thomas could wrap some gauze around his chest, to secure the dressing on his shoulder. “If that’s true,” he finally said, “I suppose they couldn’t have done anything else—but that doesn’t _help_ me.”

“No, sir,” Thomas replied. Able to think of nothing better, he said lamely, “Perhaps you’ll think of something.”

Parslow refused the offer of a cigarette or cup of tea, so after that, there was nothing to do but dispose of the soiled bandages and deposit the instruments for sterilizing. He met the two Nurses Crawley by the tea urn. As he fixed himself a cup, Sister Crawley asked, “Any luck?”

“Not much,” he said. “I think he understands we didn’t have any choice, but he’s still pretty despondent.”

“The doctors might have managed to leave him a stump,” Sister Crawley said. “But I don’t suppose he needs to know that.”

“Wouldn’t matter,” Thomas answered. “He was a violinist. Can’t do that with a hook.” At the Royal Orthopedic, he’d heard the physiotherapists trying to talk up the developments in prosthetic hands, but that was really all they were—either a hook, or a block of wood shaped like a hand. 

“Oh, that’s dreadful,” said Nurse Crawley, gazing in his direction. “No wonder he’s upset.”

“He’ll simply have to find another profession,” said Sister Crawley, briskly. “It’s unfortunate, but at least he’ll live. That is—how does the wound look?”

“Clean,” Thomas said. “I think they got it all.” It had been a little over twenty-four hours since the amputation; if any of the deadly germs had made their up Parslow’s arm and into the body, they’d likely have made their presence known by now. 

“Then he has the rest of his life to find another _métier_ ,” Sister Crawley said.

Nurse Crawley added, “Perhaps he could learn to play….” She seemed no more able to think of an instrument that could be played one-handed than Thomas could, and said instead, “He could sing—or compose! I expect it helps them if they can play a song while they’re making it up, but Beethoven went right on writing music after he went deaf.”

Thomas had a feeling that both of those were entirely different skills from playing the violin, but only said, “I’m not sure he’s in the mood to be cheered up just yet,” to stop her from going over and announcing these solutions to Parslow right away.

Taking his teacup with him, Thomas stepped outside for a cigarette. A moment or two later, Nurse Crawley joined him. This time, he didn’t make her ask—just handed her a cigarette, saying, “If Sister catches you, I’ve no idea where you got it.”

“She’s gone to tell Doctor Clarkson something,” Nurse Crawley answered, lighting it.

They were around the back of the hospital, so it was unlikely anyone else would see her—and anyway, he could claim ignorance of the rule prohibiting VADs to smoke in public. “I’d keep an eye out, if I were you,” he said, more to establish that _he_ wasn’t on look-out duty as anything else.

Nurse Crawley shrugged, and took a practiced drag of her cigarette. “I’m glad you’re staying at the house,” she said abruptly.

Thomas glanced at her. “Glad someone is,” he said, momentarily forgetting that she didn’t know about Carson’s dislike of him.

Fortunately, she didn’t ask. “Mama nearly hit the ceiling when she thought I’d walked home alone last night.” 

Thomas glanced at her sharply. “Did she find out you hadn’t?”

“Yes,” she said, with a sigh. “ _At least someone was sensible_ , she said,” imitating her ladyship’s accent. In her normal voice, she went on, “It’s embarrassing, having to be seen home like a child. None of the others do.”

“None of the others have as long a walk,” Thomas pointed out. 

“I suppose not,” she allowed. “But it’s much simpler when we can just walk together.”

“Sure,” Thomas said, adding, “Was a bit spooky, walking up there on my own at four o’clock this morning,” though it really hadn’t been. “Could’ve used you, to help fight off any highwaymen.”

She giggled, but then said, “Don’t tease. Anyway, I expect the highwaymen have all been called up.”

“Could be a crippled man, turned to a life of crime,” Thomas pointed out. “That was my plan, if the Army didn’t take me back.” That wasn’t true, either, although now he thought about it….

“I’m not sure how effective a crippled highwayman would be,” Nurse Crawley said. 

“True. I probably could have fought him off on me own.”

“Unless he had an accomplice,” Nurse Crawley suggested. “Perhaps it _is_ best if we walk together—you can hold the highwaymen at bay, while I run for more help.” 

“Good idea,” Thomas said. 

He was, perhaps, a bit punchy from lack of sleep. He didn’t know what _her_ excuse was. But when the shift ended and they started the walk back to the house, they occupied themselves pointing out to each other the places where the hypothetical highwaymen might lay in wait. 

Thomas was in a fairly good mood, when they parted ways at the top of the drive, she going in the front door while he walked around to the back.

At least, he was until he saw the kitchen door open, and Anna pop out. She must’ve been watching for him, and he couldn’t think of any news she might have that he was eager to hear. 

He was right. As soon as he was within earshot, Anna launched into a rapid explanation of how she had come to find out why Carson was more-than-usually irritated with him today. 

When she paused for breath, Thomas said, “So Mrs. Crawley dropped in and announced to his lordship that I was living here now?”

“Something like that,” Anna agreed.

“And—this is _my_ fault somehow?”

“I suppose he thinks she must have got the impression somewhere, that they’d already agreed,” Anna explained.

Oh, for fuck’s sake. Had none of them ever _met_ the woman? 

Well, he realized, not really. They’d waited on her, but that wasn’t the same thing. Her way of deciding what she thought ought to happen, and then presenting it as though it were an inevitable course of events wasn’t all that remarkable until you saw her do it to someone she did not, in fact, outrank. 

“Right,” Thomas said. “Come on. Where’s Mrs. Hughes?”

“In her sitting room, I think,” said Anna, trotting to keep up with him as he went inside. 

She was, fortunately. And on the way there, Thomas had seen William heading up the stairs with a tray, which meant Carson was safely pinned down in the dining room. 

“Good evening, Thomas,” she said. “I hope you’re feeling a bit better?”

“I’m very tired, as a matter of fact,” he said. “I’ll be heading up in a minute. But I thought perhaps I could clear up some confusion about my billeting arrangement.”

Mrs. Hughes sent a questioning look to Anna, who shrugged slightly. 

“If I understand correctly,” he said, “Mrs. Crawley stopped by and told his lordship I’d be billeted here?”

“Well, as far as I can tell, yes,” Mrs. Hughes said. “And I’m sure you didn’t deliberately give her the impression they’d agreed, but perhaps—”

“No,” Thomas said. “I didn’t. She got the idea in her head somehow that I ought to—don’t ask me how—and if you ask anyone at the hospital, they’ll tell you, when she decides that things ought to be a certain way, she often…skips over the part where asks the person whose decision it really is.”

“I see,” said Mrs. Hughes.

Thomas went on, “Yesterday, for instance, I was in the operating theater with both MOs, when she stuck her head in and informed them she’d found another patient who needed an operation, she was already halfway through prepping him for surgery, and they’d be doing him next.” 

Anna choked. Mrs. Hughes glanced at her and said, “I take it that isn’t the usual procedure?”

“No,” Thomas said. “Typically, the medical officers decide who’s having an operation and when. She was right—it was a gas gangrene case, and if I’d been the one to spot him, I’d have thought the same thing she did. But all I’d have said to the Major was that I had a case I thought he’d want to see. It drives Major Clarkson up the wall, but since she’s usually right…well, he can’t delay treating the patient just to make a point to her.” 

“I suppose not,” Mrs. Hughes allowed. “And you think that when she spoke to his lordship, it was like that?”

“I believe so. When I spoke to her about a billet, she said something about how she’d assumed I would just stay here,” Thomas explained. “And I said something about how I didn’t think I should ask. I _meant_ that I didn’t think I ought to impose on the family any further,” at least, no one could prove he _hadn’t_ meant that, “but she must have taken it differently.” 

“That does seem likely,” Anna spoke up. “It was the same sort of thing with Lady Sybil going on her nursing course—she told Mrs. Crawley that she wanted to do something meaningful to support the war, and Mrs. Crawley suggested nursing. Lady Sybil said she was interested, and the next thing she knew, Mrs. Crawley was announcing to the whole family that she was going almost immediately. She did want to go, but she said she didn’t remember ever really saying so to Mrs. Crawley—she thought they’d only agreed Mrs. Crawley would look into it.” 

“She’s like a steamroller,” Thomas said. “A very cheerful, sensible steamroller.”

Mrs. Hughes stifled a laugh. “I daresay her ladyship felt as though she’d met a steamroller.” She shook her head. “That does make a great deal of sense. I suppose you’d like me to explain it to Mr. Carson?”

“If you would,” Thomas said. Carson might believe it, coming from her, whereas if Thomas told him the sky was blue, he’d go to the window to see what other color it had turned. 

Anna chimed in, “And Mr. Bates can explain it to his lordship.” 

Thomas hadn’t even thought about _him_. “If he would.” Of the two, he suspected Carson was much more concerned about the matter. “And the other thing is, I’m not keen on going back to her complaining about my billeting assignment the day after she gave it to me. Billeting officer’s a thankless job, and I don’t need to be in her bad books.” Sister Crawley didn’t seem to have noticed yet that Major Clarkson preferred dealing with Thomas over her—because Thomas knew the Major was in charge, and acted accordingly—but she was bound to catch on sooner or later. 

“Naturally,” said Mrs. Hughes.

“So if Mr. Carson or his lordship or her ladyship doesn’t want to confront her about it, the best thing might be to give it a few weeks, and then I’ll come up with something about it not being convenient to have me coming and going at all hours, or having me near to the hospital in case of emergencies, or something.” 

Mrs. Hughes and Anna exchanged a look. “That does seem sensible,” Mrs. Hughes said. “If they feel it’s best for you to move out.”

Of course they would—why would they be making such a fuss about it otherwise? Except for the highwaymen, of course. “Sure,” he said, too weary to hash that out at the moment. “Can I go to bed now?”

“Of course,” said Mrs. Hughes. “But don’t you want any supper?”

“Not enough to stay up two hours and then be interrogated, no,” Thomas said baldly.

The two women exchanged a look, and Anna said, “Why don’t I bring you a tray, in a bit? After I’ve done Lady Sybil’s,” she added quickly.

Deciding that it was Mrs. Hughes’s job to point out what a shocking and improper suggestion that was, he said, “If you want. Goodnight,” and swept out.

#

As Anna had thought, Daisy didn’t mind fixing a tray for Thomas. It turned out that the stew for their dinner wasn’t quite ready yet, but by the time Anna got back from taking Lady Sybil’s tray up to her, the soup tureen had come down from the upstairs dinner, and of course they hadn’t finished it all—they never did—so Daisy had put some of that on a tray, with bread and cheese and a few other things. 

Carrying it out into the passage, Anna encountered Mrs. Hughes, who said, “That’s Thomas’s?” At Anna’s nod, she went on, “It isn’t quite right for you to take it to a man’s bedroom, but I suppose, as it’s Thomas….”

That was what Anna had thought. “I didn’t want to ask Mr. Bates to do it.” His leg bothered him more in the cold weather. 

“No,” Mrs. Hughes agreed. “Just this once, and don’t dilly-dally.”

Anna decided not to mention that she’d already braved the forbidden territory of the men’s corridor—and had been a little disappointed to see that it looked exactly like the women’s. 

This venture proved a little more embarrassing than the last, as she reached the top of the stairs just as Thomas was emerging from the bathroom in his dressing gown. 

His dressing gown and, she couldn’t help but notice, no other visible clothing. Seeing her, he tightened the belt, and said, “Bloody hell—warn a bloke.”

“I said I was bringing you a tray,” she pointed out, indignantly. He might have waited until after she’d been and gone to take his kit off.

“I assumed you’d come to your senses,” he said, grabbing the tray out of her hands. “Or somebody would. Or Mrs. Patmore wouldn’t fix one. Something.”

“I asked Daisy,” she said. “Anyway, why wouldn’t she?”

Thomas gave her one of his doleful looks.

“Mrs. Patmore doesn’t mind you,” she said. Honestly, she didn’t know why he assumed everyone disliked him—especially since, back when they actually _had_ , he’d never seemed to notice. “It’s really only Miss O’Brien and Mr. Carson who don’t like you.” 

Thomas drew his head back and raised an eyebrow.

“Why, who else do you think dislikes you?” 

He shook his head. “No one in particular. I didn’t realize we were admitting it now—that Carson dislikes me.”

“Well, I don’t think you’re one of his favorite people,” Anna hedged.

“I’d noticed,” Thomas said grimly. He looked away. “I’m not sure if it’s gotten worse, since I’ve been back, or if it’s just that I’m not used to it anymore.”

Anna didn’t think Mr. Carson criticized Thomas _nearly_ as much as he had before Thomas had left for the war—but then, he also had fewer opportunities to do it, and far less justification, since at the moment, Thomas wasn’t working under him. “I’m not sure, either,” she admitted. “You haven’t done anything for him to be upset about.” 

“I don’t have to _do_ anything,” Thomas snapped. He shook his head. “Sorry. I’m just tired of it. And since I’m not living here on charity anymore, I don’t see why I should have to put up with it.”

Living here on charity—was that what Thomas thought he’d been doing these last two months? “Thomas….”

He shook his head again. “This is going to get cold,” he said, lifting the tray slightly. “I’ll bring it down in the morning, all right? Good night.”

He turned to go, and she really couldn’t follow him, half-dressed, in his bedroom. “Goodnight.”

When Anna returned downstairs, Mr. Bates asked where she had been, and she explained about taking the tray up. “I could’ve taken it,” he objected.

She knew he didn’t like to be reminded of his leg, so she said, “It’s all right—we had a bit of a talk. I think he’s having a hard time.”

Giving a sidelong look to Miss O’Brien, at the other end of the table, he lowered his voice and asked, “Is he still bothered about Mr. Carson?”

After briefly considering the possible responses, Anna said simply, “Yes.”

Mr. Bates nodded. “It’s funny, what he said today—I never thought he put much effort into _not_ antagonizing Mr. Carson.”

“I’m not sure he thinks there’s much point,” she answered. 

“He may be right,” Mr. Bates allowed. 

“It’s no wonder he wanted to go on working at the hospital,” she continued. “They respect him there. William noticed it.” He hadn’t said it in quite so many words, but that was what he’d meant. 

“In that case, I really do wonder why he didn’t get himself billeted in the village,” Mr. Bates said. 

“It wasn’t his doing,” Anna said, and explained what Thomas had said about Mrs. Crawley. “I expect she was thinking about him being able to see Lady Sybil safely there and back—it does seem the obvious solution.” 

Mr. Bates sighed. “And I suppose you want me to explain all this to his lordship?”

“Yes,” she said. “He’s worried they all think he’s trying to push in.”

“Now that he isn’t, you mean?” Mr. Bates asked. 

Anna gave him a reproachful look. 

#

As Bates was taking Robert out of his evening coat, he said, “I don’t know if you’re still wondering about it, my lord, but Thomas has shed some light on the matter of his billet.”

In fact, it had nearly slipped Robert’s mind—until Cora had brought it up, just before dinner. Robert suspected O’Brien’s hand in that. “It hasn’t precisely been preying on me, but what did you find out?”

“It seems that Mrs. Crawley—who, as we all know now, is the hospital’s billeting officer—assumed that Thomas would be staying on here. He was reluctant to correct her assumption, and said only that he didn’t think he should ask.”

That was a surprising bit of delicacy on Thomas’s part—though perhaps what Bates meant was that he’d wanted someone else to do the asking. “I see.”

“He’s also observed at the hospital that when Mrs. Crawley…feels strongly about a certain course of action, she has something of a habit of presenting it as though there were no decision to be made.”

That wasn’t the least bit surprising—though Robert suspected Thomas had put it a good deal less tactfully. Mentally reviewing Cousin Isobel’s visit, he couldn’t recall her ever actually _saying_ that anyone from the house had agreed to her plan: she had simply, as Bates said, behaved as if they had. “I see,” he repeated. “I don’t particularly mind if he stays here, but I can’t say I like having the decision made for us.”

“Yes, my lord. According to Anna, Thomas is rather anxious to have it understood that he wasn’t trying to ‘push in.’” Bates sounded as skeptical about that as Robert felt. Robert raised an eyebrow, and Bates sighed and said, “Most of the women downstairs seem to have arrived at the impression that he’s too sensitive for this wicked world.”

Really? _Thomas?_ “Golly.”

“It’s a little hard to swallow, but he does seem different, since he’s been back from the war.” Before Robert could ask how he was different, Bates continued, “At any rate, he also said that, if you’d like to be shot of him, he’d rather wait a few weeks and make up some excuse—he’s worried it’ll make things difficult at the hospital, telling Mrs. Crawley she got it wrong.”

That made sense—but was also surprisingly tactful, for Thomas. “I don’t know if there’s any need. Has it been…disruptive, at all, downstairs, having him here?” It _was_ awfully convenient having him walk with Sybil, particularly since it got dark so early at this time of year. 

“I wouldn’t say so, my lord—surprisingly enough. Mr. Carson grumbles a bit about him coming and going at odd hours, but that’s all to do with when they need him at the hospital, and nothing he can help.” 

“Good,” said Robert. “Well, I’ll see how her ladyship feels about it.” After a few remarks about his clothes for the next day, he bid Bates good-night and went into the bedroom, where Cora was already getting into bed. “There you are,” she said. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d gotten lost.”

“Bates has been investigating the mystery of Thomas and the Billeting Officer,” Robert explained. He repeated what Bates had told him. 

“I can believe it,” Cora said. “She’s _impossible_ on committees, unless she’s in the chair. It’s a wonder Doctor Clarkson can stand it.”

Robert knew when a noise of vague husbandly agreement was called for, and made one.

“It’s too bad I wasn’t here when she came—I wouldn’t have fallen for it,” she went on. “Now we have to decide whether to make a fuss or not.” 

“Thomas had an idea, if we want to change things without making a fuss,” Robert said, and explained it. “Though it seems to be working out well enough, having him here.”

Cora nodded. “If we sent him away, we’d have to send a car for Sybil every evening, at least until spring,” she said. “And I’m not sure I want her spending that much time alone with Branson.”

It took a moment’s thought for Robert to get an idea of why not. “Is he handsome as well?”

“And entirely too familiar,” Cora said. “At least with Thomas, we know nothing’s going to _happen_.” She settled down under the covers. 

Robert climbed in beside her. “So we’ve decided now, that we’ll let him stay?” He didn’t want another misunderstanding, if someone ambushed him with a question on the subject.

“I think so, but I’ll speak to Mrs. Hughes about it tomorrow—in case she can think of any reason why we shouldn’t.”

“Bates said it hasn’t been a problem,” Robert noted.

“O’Brien hinted otherwise,” Cora said, with a sigh—and, Robert was glad to hear, a note of healthy skepticism in her voice. “Mrs. Hughes will know. Get the light, dear?”

Robert switched it off. After that, things happened, and Robert forgot all about Thomas.

#

“Thomas, my lady?” Mrs. Hughes said. “Why, no, he hasn’t been any trouble.” She didn’t have to think very hard to guess where Lady Grantham might have gotten the idea that he had. Mr. Carson, at least, confined his distaste for Thomas to downstairs. “He’s been a lamb since he’s been back. If you could’ve heard how distressed he was to think that the family might hold him responsible for the misunderstanding about him staying on here….” In fact, her ladyship likely wouldn’t have noticed he was distressed at all, but she didn’t know Thomas like they did. 

“You can assure him that we don’t blame him at all,” her ladyship said. “And it wasn’t him staying that we objected to, it was that the decision seemed to have been made without consulting us.”

“Of course, my lady,” Mrs. Hughes said. “He didn’t like to contradict Mrs. Crawley, you understand.”

“I do,” she said. “But has it been _disruptive_ , at all? I know they have him coming and going from the hospital at all hours, and poor Mrs. Patmore already has to deal with Lady Sybil needing special arrangements for her meals….”

Was _that_ what Miss O’Brien was accusing him of now? Making extra work for Mrs. Patmore—as though Miss O’Brien had ever cared a fig for the kitchen staff! “Oh, no—he lets us know when to expect him, and it’s no trouble for the kitchen maid to put something aside for him.” 

“That’s what I thought, but I wanted to be sure. It’s so important for all of us to do our part for the war effort.”

“I quite agree, my lady, and we’re all very proud of him, and of Lady Sybil, of course.”

“In that case, and if you’ve no objection, please let him know that we’re glad to have him stay for the duration,” Lady Grantham said, with a nod. “Now, about the menus for this week….”

Once she and her ladyship had finished discussing the household plans for the coming week, Mrs. Hughes let herself in to Mr. Carson’s pantry. “You’ll be pleased to know that, now that her ladyship and his lordship have had a chance to think about it properly, they’ve decided they’re glad to have Thomas stay.”

Mr. Carson harrumphed. “If that is their decision, naturally, I will support it.”

“Good,” she said. “I told her ladyship how proud we all are of his contribution to the war effort—and Lady Sybil’s.” 

She did _not_ say, _Don’t make a liar out of me_ , but the slow widening of Mr. Carson’s eyes, followed by a thoughtful nod, indicated that she didn’t need to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gas gangrene, confusingly, is unrelated to the poison gasses used as weapons in the Great War. As Thomas explains in the chapter, the gas in the name comes from tissue necrosis. 
> 
> Gas gangrene was a particular problem in World War One because the bacteria that cause it can live for long periods in the soil. Most trenches of the Western Front were dug into agricultural land which had been repeatedly spread with animal manure. (Chemical fertilizers were not yet in widespread use.) In addition, delays in treatment increased the severity of cases. If caught early on, gas gangrene could be treated by debridement and excision—cutting away the portions of tissue that harbored the bacteria, rather than the entire affected body part—but because patients often had to be transported long distances before they could be operated on, amputation was often necessary. Also, limited diagnostic capabilities in Front-line medical units meant that cases were often not diagnosed as gas gangrene until the condition was very advanced. 
> 
> Today, gas gangrene continues to be difficult to treat, because most of the bacteria species that cause it do not respond to antibiotics. Amputation remains a common treatment, although in abdominal cases (where amputation is obviously not possible) treatment in a hyperbaric chamber (exposing the bacteria to high concentrations of oxygen) is sometimes used.


	23. Interlude: The Peter Letters, part 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good news, everyone! Reader Elvabir made this collage about Peter: https://elvabir.tumblr.com/image/190476459625 
> 
> Be sure to check it out!

_28 February, 1917_

_Parcel day, and I got two good ones. RAMC one absolutely stuffed with cigarettes, which made me think of you. I shall imagine that each and every one is from you—except for the handful which I traded to a German for new boot-laces and a civilian newspaper. (The Germans are smoking this awful ersatz tobacco—I have no idea what it’s made of—and will swap almost anything except food for the real thing. This fellow initially offered me his watch, but I didn’t need it, or even want it—we’re not supposed to have them, as they could help in coordinating an escape, so I’d only have had to hide it.) _

_The newspaper is in German, which I can just about puzzle my way through. Since the whole reason I’m not allowed to write to you is that I might come into possession of such military secrets as are known to the German population at large, I might as well tell you that they are planning a big “push” which will cause them to win the war instantly. (Such a surprise, isn’t it? A push, in spring? I’d never have guessed.)_

_Food situation here really is quite dire—for them, I mean, not us, as we have our parcels. This is also discussed in my contraband paper, but I’d have known anyway, from the condition of the Germans around us—and their willingness to trade whatever they have for the contents of our parcels. Last parcel day, one of the nurses—a thoroughly respectable girl—actually offered to perform an indecent act if I’d give her half my bread. I didn’t take her up on it—did give her a couple of biscuits, gratis—but one of the officer-patients did. (At least one.) Of the two, the British officer’s conduct is by far the more shameful—I gather the nurse has younger brothers and sisters going hungry. _

_The propaganda papers say that things are even worse in England and France, in terms of food, and that they pray we give up soon, to relieve the suffering of the civilian population. If that were true, though, you’d think we’d see a sign of it in our parcels. We pump newly-arrived patients for information as soon as they are well enough to speak, and they deny it: French civilians are tightening their belts, they say, and England is dealing with shortages of various things, due to interrupted shipping, but no one is actually starving. So I suppose that you are all right, at least as regards food, although I suppose you must have been called up by now._

_6 April, 1917_

_The Yanks have entered the war! The propaganda papers are trying to say that they’ve come to the rescue because we are being so badly trounced, and that Germany will prevail before the Americans have had time to cross the pond, but we all know better. We are all so thrilled we had a sing-song right here in the ward—“God Save the Queen”, the “Marseillaise”, and “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” (None of us know the American anthem, so we did our best.)_

_We are all trying not to get too far ahead of ourselves—it will take some time to end the war, and some time after that for everything to be organized—but we all feel that home is just over the horizon. In a way, it makes us more homesick than ever, and we are all speculating wildly about when we might hope to be home. In time for Christmas? For a certain someone’s birthday? To see a son or daughter off to their first day of school? (One poor bastard—a patient—had a home leave just before he was captured, and now his wife is expecting, so of course he is hoping the war will be over in less than nine months!)_

_I feel a bit lucky not caring so much about being home by any particular date—my most important plans, as you know, are that drink we talked about having at the Bird and Bell, at war’s end. I suppose it will have to wait until we’re both demobbed—I am assuming you have been called up—but it will be just as good whenever it is. (“In three weeks or three years,” as the recruiting posters said, back at the start of the whole thing. We’re not far from the three-year mark now—and it can’t possibly go on another three, can it? Not with the Germans so worn out, and the Americans coming in fresh as the proverbial daisies.)_

_I was in a German enlisted men’s ward the other day—trying to scrounge some decent bandages—and you wouldn’t believe how many kids and old men were in there. (Or perhaps you would, if you’ve been fighting them close-up enough to see.) They don’t tell us where they’ve pegged their military age (although they do tell us when ours changes), but if you picked out two blokes from the ward and told me they were grandfather and grandson, I’d believe it. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Historical Note: 
> 
> The winter of 1916-17 was known as the "Turnip Winter" in Germany--a period of severe food shortage caused by the combination of widespread crop failures and the war itself. Even before the crop failures, agricultural production was down, as a result of most of the able-bodied men and horses being away at the war. In addition, the Allied naval blockade drastically curtailed imports from outside Germany. When the fall '16 potato and grain harvests failed, the situation became truly dire. (Turnips, the one major crop which did _not_ fail that year, were normally used as fodder for livestock.) The government's official recipe for "war bread" (issued in both civilian and military rations), called for 30% sawdust and straw.


	24. Chapter 19: April, 1917

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New faces appear, both at Downton and at the village hospital. 
> 
> This chapter covers the approximate time period of Episode 2X02, and includes a few bits of dialogue from that episode.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content notes: In addition to the usual medical gore, this chapter includes the following:
> 
> 1) Suicide. (You can probably guess, but see the endnote for details.)
> 
> 2) Mild warning for turn-of-the-century racial attitudes and language. See endnote for details.

“Do you suppose we’ll get American patients?” Nurse Crawley asked, unspooling the tape measure as she walked backwards toward the opposite wall. 

“Don’t know,” Thomas admitted. The United States had recently declared war on Germany—getting everyone’s hopes up for a quick victory. “I expect _this_ is just about the normal spring offensives, though.” Major Clarkson had been ordered to produce a report on how many additional patients the hospital might manage to accommodate; he and Nurse Crawley, in turn, had been ordered to measure the day-rooms and other spaces that could be converted into wards. “It’ll be ages before any Americans even get to France.” 

“Well, yes, but when they do, I mean,” Nurse Crawley said. “That’s…thirty-six feet.”

Thomas noted it down. “I expect they’ll bring their own medical corps with them,” he said, giving more thought to her question. “But they’ll need somewhere to put them, away from the fighting but not across the whole ocean. Might bring them here, I suppose.” To England, at any rate, though a cottage hospital in a small village in Yorkshire likely wouldn’t be the first place they thought of. “Though if they want us to take many, we’re going to have to put Army huts on the green.”

“Granny would love that,” she observed, going to measure the other dimension of the room. 

“They’re a good bit easier to work in,” Thomas said. This place, built before anyone had heard of germs, had all sorts of decorative flourishes that were hard to keep clean, and the scullery and sink-room were badly located and smaller than they should have been. “But I imagine if the Army _were_ to put up hospital huts in villages, they’d start closer to the Channel.”

“I suppose so,” Nurse Crawley said. “Sixty-four feet.”

Once they had finished the measurements, Thomas went outside for a cigarette, around the back of the hospital—now that the spring weather had arrived, the patients sat out front on fine days. 

A moment or two later, Nurse Crawley joined him. She looked expectantly at him, and he wordlessly passed her his cigarette case and lighter.

“Thank you,” she said, selecting a cigarette. As she handed the case back, she asked casually, “Is he your sweetheart? The one who was killed?”

Thomas choked on his smoke. He’d momentarily forgotten about the picture—a good thing in the abstract, he supposed, since he’d started carrying the case again in an effort to stop it being an object of superstitious dread, but not at all a good thing in the particular.

Nurse Crawley helpfully thumped him on the back. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” he managed, and coughed again. “He’s my _brother_.”

“I know,” she said. “You said that so you’d be notified.”

 _Fuck me blind_. “Who told you about _that_?”

“Mary,” she said. “Or maybe it was Anna?” She considered for a moment. “Oh, now I remember—they talked about it in front of me.”

This just got worse and worse—both Lady Mary _and_ Lady Sybil knew? Was there anyone in the house who _didn’t_? “I’m sorry they troubled you with that,” Thomas said stiffly. 

“Oh, I don’t mind that you’re a homosexual,” she said, _much_ too loudly. 

“ _Keep your voice down!”_ Thomas snapped. 

She drew back a little. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But it’s not meant to be public knowledge. I could get in a lot of trouble.”

“I’m the one who should apologize,” she said. “It’s very sad, that you could get in trouble just for being in love with the wrong person.”

That wasn’t precisely what he’d be in trouble for, but the last thing Thomas wanted was to be asked to explain precisely what constituted an act of gross indecency. “It’s all right—just be careful what you say about it. And to whom. And where. And at what volume.”

“I will,” she promised. A moment later, she said—quietly—“I don’t suppose any of us can help who we fall in love with, can we? Even if it’s someone that…well, that might be thought completely unsuitable.”

“No, I suppose not,” he said. Was she hinting that _she_ was in love with someone unsuitable? Mentally reviewing what he’d seen of her with the patients and orderlies—and the other VADs, for good measure—he couldn’t come up with any obvious candidates. 

It wasn’t any of his business, in any case. And no good would come of his knowing—if there _was_ something going on that shouldn’t be, he might be considered to have a duty to report it to Sister Crawley, if he knew about it. 

Unfortunately, Nurse Crawley was not struck by a similar impulse to mind her own business. “How did you,” she began, and then hesitated long enough for Thomas to become truly worried about what she was going to ask. It was something of a relief when she finished, “Decide? That it was…worth it, I mean?”

She was in love with someone unsuitable, all right—or thought she was, at any rate. “There wasn’t really anything to decide.”

“You mean—you just knew?”

What a world she lived in. “I mean, it wasn’t as though we could get married.” Or even set up house together. “Nor was either of us going to fall in love with someone _more_ suitable.”

“Oh, yes, I see,” she said. “But after the war, couldn’t you—”

“I don’t really want to talk about what we thought we’d do after the war,” Thomas interrupted. He could just about stand talking about it with Rouse, who knew all the reasons it had been impossible, but he couldn’t possibly bear trying to explain to _Lady Sybil_ why they hadn’t just run away together. “If you don’t mind.”

“Of course,” she said. “I shouldn’t have pried. I’m sure the subject is still painful.”

At least she understood that much. “It is,” he said, tossing down his cigarette. “And I’d best be getting back to work.”

Fortunately, she didn’t raise the subject again as they walked back to Downton Abbey—now that it was spring, the walk was made in twilight, and the danger of highwaymen even more remote, but they still usually walked together. 

When he let himself in the kitchen door, Thomas saw Carson, of all people, carrying the main course up to the dining room, followed by Anna with a sauce. Sitting down next to Bates in the servants’ hall, he asked, “Something happen to William?”

Bates explained, “His call-up papers came in the morning post.”

Noting in the back of his mind that someone had better look in on Daisy, Thomas said, “And he’s gone already? Did the post office misplace the letter?” Surely he’d not have been ordered to report that very day.

Bates looked at him with an expression that might have been pity. “He went home, to spend his last few days with his father.”

Oh. Of course; that was something people did. “Right,” Thomas said. To cover the lapse, he added, “I don’t suppose they’d insist on notice, in the circumstances.”

“Mr. Carson had a bit of a grumble about it, but it wasn’t as though he could tell him not to go,” Bates said. 

When the upstairs dinner was finished, and Anna came in, Thomas asked her how Daisy was holding up. “She’s all right, I think,” Anna answered. “Mrs. Patmore seems to be taking it harder, for some reason.” That was distinctly odd, but as Daisy brought in their dinner, she did seem all right—a bit withdrawn, perhaps. 

Later, he was out smoking his after-dinner cigarette when she came out with a bowl of scraps to throw away. “Doing all right?” he asked her.

She slammed the lid on the bin. “I wish everyone would stop asking!”

“Sorry,” Thomas said, flicking ash from his cigarette. 

She sighed, and sat down on a crate near to his, holding the empty scrap-bowl in her hands. “He asked me for a photograph, to take with him.”

Thomas nodded, taking a drag from his cigarette. Of course he had—they’d been walking out for years now.

“I like William,” she went on. “I mean, everyone likes William. But I’m not sure we’re proper sweethearts. Not to me.”

Oh. He raised an eyebrow.

“It’s been…fun,” she said, “walking out with him. But I think that’s more…well, just walking out with _someone_. He’s the only man I see regularly—our age, I mean—and he’s nice, and has a good job, and I should count meself lucky, really, but….”

It was hard for Thomas to find much sympathy—he wanted to point out to her that at least they _could_ walk out—but he could just about manage to see how it was a difficult problem.

“But I can hardly tell him _now_ , that I’d like us to just be friends,” she finished. 

“Not the best time for it,” Thomas agreed. 

“I was hoping he wouldn’t get called up after all,” she admitted. “With the Americans, and everything. And then we could just sort of…stop. Gradual-like.”

“It’s only a photograph,” Thomas pointed out. “It isn’t as though you’re promising him anything. Technically.”

She bit her lip. “No, but….”

“He won’t expect you to do anything more than write to him,” Thomas said. Not like what’s-her-name and her under-gardener. “And I suppose you would anyway—as a friend.”

“But I can’t write him _love letters_. Not if I’m not in love with him.”

William didn’t strike Thomas as likely to write a lot of soppy stuff—but then, Thomas had no way of knowing how William-in-love might behave. “I expect you can get away with keeping it light and chatty—Downton gossip, that sort of thing.” The sort of thing Anna had written to him. 

The sort of thing _he_ had written to Peter. 

He went on, “But if you don’t think you can keep it up…it’s not a _good_ time to break it off, but from here, it’s going to get worse before it gets better. At training, they’ll keep him too busy to fret about it much. I mean, _I—_ ” He stopped abruptly. Nearly everyone at the house knew, but he wasn’t sure if Daisy did. 

But she nodded. “It took your mind off things, like?”

“Yes,” Thomas said, and hurried on, “But getting a ‘Dear John’ at the Front, that’s pretty rough. Everything’s already so grim and depressing. At least now—well, unless he’s come to his senses in the last few hours, he’s still excited about going.”

Daisy nodded, looking brighter. “He is—he said he hopes they don’t win it before he gets there.” Her face fell. “But everyone else knows he shouldn’t be. They’ll think I’m a cold-hearted witch, if I break his heart right before he goes off to war.”

She had a point. “I don’t see any way around that,” he said. “Apart from letting him go on thinking you’re sweethearts.”

Daisy sighed dejectedly.

#

“She’s talking to Thomas,” Anna reported to Mrs. Patmore, who’d been carrying on for the last several minutes about where “that girl” could have gotten to. “Best give them a few minutes,” she advised. “I expect he understands best what she’s going through.”

“What she’s going through!” Mrs. Patmore said. “It’s what poor William will be going through that I’m thinking about.”

“He knows about that, too,” she pointed out.

Within a few minutes, Daisy had come back inside, and Thomas as well. As they went back to the servants’ hall, Anna raised the subject of what “poor William” would soon be going through, and was heartened to hear Thomas say, “It’s possible it won’t be so bad, with the Yanks coming in. Maybe they’ll decide to let them take the brunt of this year’s offensives.”

“You think so?” Anna asked, taking her seat.

“It’s possible,” Thomas repeated. “Just as likely, they’ll try the first of July all over again, in hopes of making a big breakthrough before the Americans come and snatch all the glory.” 

“Oh,” said Anna. 

Thomas went on to explain that the War Office had instructed them to make room for more patients at the hospital. “The only way we’ll manage it is by eliminating the day rooms, and shipping them off to Farley Hall as soon as they’re able to get out of bed. Could be just be general planning ahead; could be they’ve something planned that they expect heavy casualties.”

Anna shifted the subject. “Mr. Matthew’s going to be out of it for a bit. They were talking about it at dinner—he’s touring Yorkshire with a General, for some reason.”

“Lucky old him,” Thomas said. “They going to be looking in at the hospital?”

“They didn’t say, but he’ll be here in about two weeks—they’re planning a dinner.”

“Without a footman?” Thomas said. “Carson’s going to love that.”

Ethel, who’d been eavesdropping, piped up, “We could disguise ourselves as men. Strap our—ourselves down, and hide our hair under our collars. In livery, I bet no one would notice.”

Anna and Thomas exchanged a look, and he said, “Somehow, I think Mr. Carson would find that even worse than having maids in the dining room in dresses.” 

“Will you do it, then?” Ethel asked. “I expect the hospital would have to let you off for the evening, if they asked.” 

Anna thought she was probably right—it wouldn’t be exactly _proper_ , but it would be hard for Doctor Clarkson to say no, and surely he could manage something, even with his shoulder the way it was. Thomas, however, said, “He’s just going to be spoiled for choice, isn’t he? Maids, cross-dressed maids, or me—I don’t know how he’ll decide.”

#

Despite what Thomas had said to Anna and the others, he was a little worried that Carson _would_ want him in the dining room for the big occasion. Well, _want_ was certainly too strong of a word, but he might just decide that Thomas was a less appalling option than the alternatives. And then Thomas would have to _show_ him that he couldn’t carry trays in his left hand, and then—well, Thomas wasn’t sure _what_ would happen next, but he didn’t want to find out.

That worry, however, was pushed to the back of his mind by developments at the hospital. Nearly as soon as Major Clarkson had submitted his report, which stressed how inconvenient it would be to squeeze in any more wards, they received orders to do just that. So, in addition to all their other work, they had to set up the dayrooms as wards, and deal with the increased demands of gentlemen confined to their beds when they would have been well enough to venture into the next room to read the newspaper or have a game of cards, had there been a room for them to do it in. They were also allocated a few new VADs and orderlies, which would be a help in the long run, but for right now, training them was just more extra work. 

Thomas was utterly unsurprised when, a couple of days later, the papers brought news of a Big Push in northern France. 

He was, however, a little surprised to return to the house that evening and find a new face downstairs—or rather, a face that was _not_ completely new, although Thomas couldn’t place him at first. A man a bit older than he was, quite thin, and something in the back of Thomas’s mind didn’t expect to see him in livery—

It wasn’t until he caught sight of Thomas and startled, violently enough to rattle the dishes on the tray he was bringing down, that Thomas placed him. The CCS, the previous winter. Stammer, battle dreams, bouts of weepiness. Thomas had had him on a work crew for a bit, and he’d mentioned having been in service before the war—valet, Thomas thought. “Lang, isn’t it?” he asked, reaching out to steady the tray. 

“Yes, Corporal,” he said automatically. No trace of the stammer, at least. “Er, it’s Henry, here.”

“Henry,” Thomas repeated. He seemed to have the tray under control now, so Thomas released it. “Best get on, before Mr. Carson has a fit,” he said. “We can talk after dinner, if you’d like.” For one thing, Thomas would have to find out what Lang had told them, about his military service and how he’d gotten out.

“Right,” said Henry Lang. “Best get on,” he echoed.

Thomas continued to the servants’ hall, where Anna filled him in on what was known about the new arrival. His lordship had gone down to London to inquire at the placement agencies about a footman, and given the limited selection, had hired Henry Lang on the spot. “He was invalided out of the Army,” Bates added. “Apparently, the doctors recommended he try working in the country.”

Thomas was not entirely sure that working under Carson was precisely what they’d had in mind. “I see,” he said. “Well, he’s come just in time to spare Mr. Carson from dying of shame, so let’s hope he’s grateful.”

But when they came into the servants’ hall—Carson puffing like a railway engine, and Lang scuttling after him like a crab caught short by the ebbing tide—it didn’t seem likely. And when they all sat down, and Carson launched into what sounded like the second half of a lecture about how Things Were Done at Downton Abbey, it became absolutely clear that he wasn’t.

For a while, Thomas was torn between being glad someone else was on the receiving end of Carson’s disapprobation—for a change—and feeling sorry for the poor bastard. But as Lang’s head sank between his shoulders, the scales tipped decidedly in favor of the latter, and when his hands started to shake—his fork rattling against the plate—Thomas didn’t think he could stand it much longer. 

He would have tried saying something to Lang first, but Lang was seated across the table, between Miss O’Brien and Ethel, and anything Thomas tried to say to him would be heard by everyone else. 

Sometimes, you just had to throw yourself onto the grenade. “Mr. Carson,” Thomas said, interrupting him in mid-tirade. “I’d like to speak to you after dinner, if that’s convenient.”

Carson turned an incredulous look on him, and Thomas rather wished he’d left Lang to his own devices. “About _what_ , may I ask?”

“You may,” said Thomas. “After dinner.”

Across the table, Lang was watching him warily, and Thomas attempted to shrug in a reassuring manner. 

Later, as the meal was being cleared—and after Mr. Carson had left—Lang scuttled around the table to Thomas’s side, slipping into the place that Anna had vacated, between him and Bates. “Colonel—that is, Lord Grantham—knows why I was discharged from the Army,” he said. 

“That’s probably for the best,” Thomas said. It didn’t seem likely that Lang could keep it a secret for long—and it would be fairly difficult to say what he had in mind to Mr. Carson, if it was supposed to be a secret. “Thought they sent you back up to the Front, though.”

“They did,” said Lang. “I…suffered a relapse.”

“I gather that happens a lot.” Thomas tried to remember if Lang had been there at the same time as Kingston, or the poor bastard who shot himself in the foot. He wasn’t sure. “I caught a packet at the Somme,” he said. “Shoulder. Now I’m working at the hospital in the village.”

Lang nodded. “One of the others said. Miss O’Brien, I think.”

So O’Brien had her hooks into him already? “Word of advice,” Thomas said. “If she tells you she can get Bates fired and make you valet, she’s lying.”

Bates, on Lang’s other side, coughed. 

Thomas glanced at him. “And once I’ve left the room, Mr. Bates will warn you about me, if he hasn’t already.”

“I don’t need to wait,” Bates said. “If she did manage to get rid of me, you’d have to fight Thomas for it.”

That wasn’t precisely the warning that Thomas had had in mind, but he said, “If the war’s ended by then, yeah, might stab you in the throat with a rusty knife. But until then, we might as well be mates.”

“And now you know as much as you need to about Thomas,” Bates said. 

Well, nearly, anyway. Lang said, “We’ve met, as a matter of fact.”

“In France,” Thomas added, because if Lang went around being mysterious about their acquaintance, everyone was sure to get the wrong idea. 

“Corporal Barrow was at the hospital where I was treated,” Lang said. He took a deep breath. “For shell-shock.”

Bates, to his credit, didn’t react beyond a nod. “Mine’s a leg wound,” he said. “But from the South African war. I served under Lord Grantham there—that’s why he was kind enough to give me the job, even though I can’t wait at table when there’s a need.”

Now that was a sharp bit of maneuvering; if Lang was thinking that his lordship had hired him out of pity—which, to be honest, he probably had—at least he knew he wasn’t the only one. “And nobody’s really sure what _I’m_ doing back here,” he added. He moved on, “Do you know if his lordship’s explained to Mr. Carson, about your discharge?”

Lang hesitated. “I…don’t know. I hoped he wouldn’t have to.”

 _That_ didn’t seem at all likely. “If Carson knows that his lordship is aware of…the situation, and has decided it’s for the best, he won’t go against him.” Thomas and Bates were both living proof of that—Carson had even seemed to be making a bit of an effort, lately, to keep his feelings about Thomas’s presence in the house to himself. “Also, I’m sure someone will tell you soon enough why it’s not a good idea to keep Carson in the dark about how we know each other. Left to his own devices, the conclusion he’ll come to is even worse.” 

“What—?” Lang began, but he clammed up at a slight shake of Bates’s head. 

“Not here,” Bates said.

“Don’t worry,” Thomas added. “We’re all extremely good at knowing things and not talking about them.”

Not long after that, Carson came back down from fetching the coffee things from upstairs, and Thomas went to beard the dragon in his den. 

He was a little relieved to hear Mrs. Hughes’s voice, from inside the half-open door to the butler’s pantry. “—do think it was wrong, since you ask.”

Thomas suspected they were discussing the very subject he’d come to broach, and would have liked to keep listening long enough to confirm it, but it wouldn’t help matters at all to be caught eavesdropping. He knocked briskly on the door-frame. 

“ _What_?” Carson demanded. 

With a mental prayer that Mrs. Hughes wouldn’t desert the field, he went in. “Is this a good time, Mr. Carson?”

“Not. Particularly,” said Carson, biting off each word. 

Doing his best impression of Sister Crawley as amiable steamroller, Thomas went on, “Because I thought I might be able to fill in a few gaps, about Lang. Henry,” he corrected himself. 

Mrs. Hughes said quickly, “His lordship has just been explaining to Mr. Carson, that we must be patient.”

Oh, good. “I was going to suggest you speak to him on the subject,” Thomas said smoothly. “Mrs. Hughes, you may remember, last winter, I was working at the,” he paused to choose his words. “Special hospital.”

“I do,” Mrs. Hughes said. 

“As it happens, Lang—Henry—was there at the time. He was on one of my work crews, in fact. Decent enough worker, even at the height of his…difficulties. The thing is, with blokes like that, if you draw attention to their—difficulties—it only makes matters worse. If they’re carrying on as best they can—and Lang’s the sort to try—it’s best just to pretend nothing’s amiss.”

“Well that certainly makes sense,” Mrs. Hughes put in. “You wouldn’t want a fuss, if you were having troubles,” she told Carson. 

Carson rumbled his displeasure at—Thomas guessed—the prospect that he might be capable of having “troubles.” Recovering enough to produce actual words, he said, “If he isn’t well enough to work, I’m not sure what he was doing at an employment agency.”

“I expect he needs to work,” Thomas said. It was difficult enough getting a discharge for nervous troubles, let alone a pension. “And it’s meant to be the best thing for them, working.” Despite the failure of the treatment methods Thomas had observed at the 14th Casualty Clearing Station, he’d read in one of Major Clarkson’s RAMC medical journals that similar centers had been set up throughout the British section of the Front. “Having nothing to occupy them makes it worse.”

“Even so—he doesn’t need to work _here_ ,” Carson grumbled. 

“I can’t imagine there’s too many would-be footmen to choose from, at the moment,” Thomas pointed out. “And he’s got to be a more convincing footman than Ethel in trousers.”

Carson sputtered, and even Mrs. Hughes said reprovingly, “Thomas!”

“She volunteered for it,” Thomas said with a shrug. “Might have been a joke—I’m not sure. At any rate, you’re not going to get a healthy man. We’re not even getting them in the RAMC. You can’t use anyone with a limb wound, or anyone who’s blind or deaf. You could have a man who’s been gassed, coughing his lungs out in the dining room, or one with a facial injury that people won’t want to look at while they’re eating. If you don’t fancy that, you’re pretty much left with shell-shock. Or maids in the dining room. Take your pick.”

Thomas thought that might be a good note on which to make his exit, but Carson was eying him speculatively. “ _You_ could manage in the dining room,” he said. “Without making yourself conspicuous.”

He really couldn’t, but with Lang in the picture, he didn’t have to explain why not. “And I’m still in the Army.”

#

“Is the new footman settling in all right?” Robert asked, as Bates divested him of his cufflinks.

Bates glanced at him. “I believe so, my lord. I take it he’s…a bit out of practice, when it comes to waiting at table.”

Robert held in a sigh. Carson had wasted no time, after dinner, in confronting him with an enumeration of the poor blighter’s errors—most of which had been barely noticeable. “He had a difficult war.”

“I gathered as much, my lord. It seems Thomas knows him, from France.”

Robert gave him a sharp look. If they were… _particular_ friends, that would be another mark against Henry, in Carson’s books. 

“He was a patient, at the Casualty Clearing Station where they had Thomas working last winter,” Bates explained. “Apparently, he was treated and sent back to the Front, but then had a relapse.”

How ghastly. “He didn’t go into that much detail,” Robert said. “I must say, he seemed steadier when I met him in London. But I suppose most people are nervous in a new position.” Really, he was surprised Carson had had him waiting at table his first evening. 

“Yes, my lord.” Bates took the cufflinks to the box. “Thomas and I spoke to him a bit. Let him know we both know what war is like. And what it’s like to come home not quite the same.”

“Good,” said Robert. There hadn’t been much choice, at the employment agency, but he had hoped that, by giving him the job, they could do a bit of good for a man who had served his country and suffered for it. 

#

Thomas didn’t get much opportunity to see whether or not Carson heeded his advice regarding Lang. The next day brought a convoy, and put Thomas back on night duty. In hopes of taking some of that burden off himself and Sister Crawley, he was giving extra training to a couple of the cleverer orderlies, in making clinical observations. They were coming along nicely, but the new crop of patients included several cases terribly burned from the newest horror, mustard gas. Since they had only a hastily-written RAMC bulletin to give them an idea of what to watch out for with the new stuff, Thomas and Sister Crawley agreed that the two of them should take charge of those cases.

Unlike the poisonous gasses they’d seen before, which had victims drowning in the rot of their own lungs on the spot, mustard gas took hours to take effect. It settled into the victims’ skin and clothing, causing great, blistering chemical burns. The RAMC bulletin announced the hard-won knowledge that men exposed to the gas had to be stripped and scrubbed as soon as possible—but that knowledge had come late for some of these patients, who had not received treatment until the blisters started to develop. Two of these, burned over more than three-quarters of their bodies, died that first night, as did one who’d gotten a lungful of the stuff and, presumably, had the same kind of blistering on the _inside_. 

Others, more lightly exposed, were thought to have fairly decent chances, but the burns were agonizingly painful and highly prone to infection, so they required frequent medication and dressing changes, as well as monitoring for infection and for signs of lung trouble. 

Not that there was a great deal that could be done, if either of those complications began to develop.

On the evening of the dinner party for Captain Crawley—his new job had brought a promotion, apparently, as well as a return to England—Thomas went down to the hospital early, as both Nurse Crawley and Sister Crawley would be leaving early to attend the dinner party. He arrived just in time to hear Nurse Crawley complaining, “I don’t see the point of Mama’s soirees. What are they _for_?”

In this case, the point was to welcome her cousin back from the war. It wasn’t Thomas place to say so, either to Nurse Crawley _or_ Lady Sybil, though, and he rather thought Sister Crawley’s calm reply, that she was going and looking forward to it, got the point across.

Looking around the ward, he caught sight of Branson, standing off to one side and looking sheepish. Thomas supposed he must’ve been sent to round up Nurse Crawley, and give Lady Sybil no excuse for not appearing on time. Seeing Thomas, he nodded to him, and said, “Barrow. Could have given you a lift down, if I’d known you were on your way.”

“I don’t mind the walk,” Thomas said, although he’d not have minded the ride, either. “I’ll see if I can get them moving, shall I?”

As he approached them, Nurse Crawley was saying, “—to speak to Lieutenant Courtenay, when I gave him his pills. He’s been having a difficult time.”

“I expect Corporal Barrow can talk with him,” Sister Crawley answered. “Can’t you?”

“Of course,” he said. “I’d be glad to.” Courtenay was one of the gas cases—and, that being so, had no business being as handsome as he was. Apart from the swath of bandages over his eyes, you’d not know there was anything wrong with him. “Still no improvement, then?” he asked, pitching the question between the two of them.

“The chemical burns are healing nicely,” Sister Crawley answered. “But as for his eyesight….” She shook her head. 

“That’s a shame,” Thomas said. Gas blindness usually wore off—often, it was caused as much by swelling and discharge around the eyes as anything else—but Courtenay had been gassed something like ten days ago. 

Nurse Crawley handed over Courtenay’s pills—a little sulkily—and went off with Branson. After briefing him on a few more cases, Sister Crawley made her own departure, and Thomas went to check on Courtenay. 

Courtenay, as it turned out, didn’t want them. “All they do is make me sleepy,” he said. “And I’ve slept all day already.” 

Thomas couldn’t really argue with that—they were only morphine tablets. “As you like, sir,” he said. “I’ll stop by a bit later, see if you feel differently.” 

“All right,” said Courtenay, vaguely.

After that there were the patients’ dinners to get, and medications to hand out to the gentlemen who _did_ want them, and the other chores of settling the wards down for the night. But when all that was done, and the rest of the day staff had left, Thomas went back to Courtenay.

He was in the new small ward—the one that had been the dayroom, a couple of weeks ago—and the bed next to his was empty. They’d had one of the severe cases there, a couple of days ago. “It’s Corporal Barrow, sir,” he said, sitting on the neighboring bed. 

Courtenay turned his head toward him. “Hullo,” he said. His voice was a bit glum, but Thomas thought he was smiling, slightly. 

“Nurse Crawley wanted to visit you, but she had to leave early,” Thomas explained. “Her cousin’s back from France for a bit; they’re having him to dinner. So you’re stuck with me instead.”

“I don’t mind,” said Courtenay. “Her cousin—is he related to _Sister_ Crawley, as well?”

“Her son,” Thomas confirmed. “And heir to Nurse Crawley’s father’s title.”

“There’s a lot of that going around,” Courtenay noted. 

Cousins inheriting titles, he meant. By the time it was all over—if it ever was—likely more titles than not would be in the hands of distant relations. “Yes, sir, but he has been since before the war, as it happens. His lordship never had a son, and the previous heir—a closer cousin—was killed.” Thomas’s mind skittered away from the subject of sinking ships, and who might have been killed on them, but he made himself add, “On the _Titanic_.”

“Rotten luck,” Courtenay sympathized. “What about you?” he asked. “You’re connected to the family somehow, aren’t you?”

“Not really,” Thomas said. “Well, sort of. I was their footman, before the war.” 

“Oh,” said Courtenay. “Sorry—I thought I heard you were staying with them.”

“I am,” Thomas said. “Sort of. When I was wounded, I needed someplace to stay, and they hadn’t replaced me, so….” He didn’t really want to talk about it. “What about you, sir? What did you do before the war started?” Not that it was any of his business. But he hoped Courtenay hadn’t been a painter, or something like that.

“I was up at Oxford,” Courtenay said, tucking an arm behind his head. “But I only ever planned to farm. Farm, and shoot, and hunt, and fish, and everything I’ll never do again.”

Not painting, then, but bad enough—or he thought so, at least, from his despairing tone. 

“You don’t know that, sir,” Thomas began. Sister Crawley had said they were to be optimistic, where Lieutenant Courtenay’s future was concerned, and he wasn’t Peter—they’d never promised not to lie to each other—but he found the rest of the comforting formula— _gas blindness wears off_ —sticking in his throat. “I don’t know about shooting, nor hunting either, but I expect you could manage to ride, and fish, perhaps.”

Courtenay scoffed. “Be taken around a paddock on a leading rein, like a child on a pony? I don’t think so.”

“Well, at first,” Thomas admitted. “It takes time to get your balance back.” One of Major Clarkson’s medical journals had had an article about rehabilitating the blind, and on a slow night, Thomas had read most of it. “But I don’t see why you couldn’t do a bit of hacking out, once you’d got the hang of it. The horse can see, after all.”

Courtenay frowned—but not in displeasure. At least, Thomas thought not—it was difficult to read his expression, with half his face obscured by bandages. “It would take a very reliable horse,” he said. 

“I suppose, sir,” Thomas agreed. He knew next to nothing about horses. “And as for fishing, a lot of it’s done by feel, isn’t it?” He knew almost as little about fishing, though he’d seen it done, setting up the luncheons and so on. “I mean, the fish is underwater where you can’t see it anyway.”

“Sometimes you can see it,” Courtenay answered. “I’d probably get the line caught in the trees more often than I got it in the water.” 

“Perhaps,” Thomas said. “But doesn’t that happen anyway?” Belatedly, he added, “Sir.”

Courtenay waved that off, with a sigh. “I’ve never seen a blind man fish _or_ ride,” he said glumly. 

Thomas nearly pointed out that, after he’d done it, he still wouldn’t have seen it, but decided that might be in poor taste. Instead, he said, “You don’t know what you can handle until you have to try, sir. And that’s not flannel; it’s a fact. I expect in the war you did any number of things, that you wouldn’t have thought you could do, if anyone had asked. I know I did.” Going on living after Peter died, for one. 

“True enough,” Courtenay conceded. “But most of those, I didn’t have a choice.”

“You don’t really have a choice about this, either,” Thomas pointed out bluntly. No more than he had about going on after Peter. “Or not much of one, anyway. You can’t choose whether you’ll be blind or not. You can’t even choose which things you’ll be able to learn to do again and which you won’t.” That didn’t sound very encouraging. What was it he’d been thinking Courtenay _did_ have a choice about? “All you get to choose is whether you try to do the things you want, and find out whether you can or not. And I don’t suppose it’s my place to say, but the way I see it, you might as well try, since even if you fail, you’re not any worse off than if you gave up before you started.” 

Courtenay looked at him—or rather, pointed his face in his direction—for a long moment. “Perhaps,” he finally said. “But…I’ll have to think about it.”

“Yes, sir,” Thomas said, getting up. “And I should probably check on some of the others.”

The next morning, Thomas reported to Sister Crawley—and to Nurse Crawley, who’d taken an interest in the case—that Lieutenant Courtenay had caught on that his blindness was likely to be permanent. Neatly eliding over his own role in abandoning the official line on the subject, he said, “We talked a bit about what his life might be like, if he is blind for good. He seemed to find that a bit more helpful than…well, than hoping for the best.” 

“Did you talk about the Braille system of writing?” Nurse Crawley asked eagerly. “Or navigation using a cane?”

“Er, no,” Thomas admitted. “We mostly talked about country sports—the sorts of things he liked to do before the war.” 

“I expect that’s important too,” said Sister Crawley. 

On his way out of the hospital, Thomas encountered Major Clarkson on his way in. “Corporal Barrow,” he said, waving him over. “I’m glad I caught you. Will you look in on Mr. Carson, before you go off-duty? I know he isn’t a military patient, but since you’re going up to the house anyway, you might just make sure there haven’t been any developments I should know about.”

“Of course, sir,” Thomas said, because he couldn’t possibly say anything else. “I didn’t know he was ill.”

“Oh, yes, I suppose you wouldn’t—they fetched me from home. He had an attack of angina. It doesn’t seem to be anything serious. Stress, most likely. Remind him that he’s to rest today, and telephone if there’s anything alarming.” He ran down a list of things that would be alarming—a bluish tinge to Carson’s lips or fingernails, for instance. “Otherwise, I’ll call on him in the afternoon.”

“Yes, sir,” Thomas said, comforting himself with the knowledge that Carson wouldn’t enjoy this any more than he did. 

Up at the house, he found everything in an uproar, and finally tracked Mrs. Hughes down in the breakfast room, where for some reason both she and Anna were supervising as Lang—Henry—set out the things for when the family came down. He explained the errand upon which Major Clarkson had sent him, concluding, “And I can take a breakfast tray up to him while I’m at it, if you’d like.”

“That would be very helpful,” Mrs. Hughes said. “I want to look in on him myself, but I won’t get a chance until later.”

Thomas trooped back downstairs to fetch the breakfast tray. While she fixed it, Daisy filled him in further on the details of Carson’s attack—it had, apparently, taken place right in the middle of the upstairs dinner. “I’m not sure what Henry did wrong,” she said, “but Mr. Carson took the sauce away from him, and then when his attack started, he dropped the tray with the first course, and poured the sauce on Lady Edith. Lady Sybil and Mr. Matthew had to carry him upstairs.”

“I’m almost sorry I missed that,” Thomas noted. 

“It wasn’t funny,” Daisy said. She considered a moment, and added, “Well, not _then_. We all thought he were having a heart attack, but Doctor Clarkson said he weren’t.” She plunked some toast onto the tray. “There you go.”

“Right,” Thomas said, hefting it. Then he put it down. “Has anyone checked that he’s—” He just managed not to say _alive_. “Awake?”

Daisy nodded. “Mr. Bates looked in on him.”

Thomas picked up the tray again. “If I’m not back in twenty minutes, send a rescue party.”

Carson, fortunately—at least, on balance, Thomas decided it was fortunate—was still both alive and awake when Thomas got to his room. “What are you doing with that?” he asked peevishly. 

“Major Clarkson asked me to look in on you,” he said, putting it down on the desk, “and Mrs. Hughes wanted me to bring that while I was at it.”

He reached for Carson’s wrist, and Carson snatched it away with a look of incredulous horror. “What are you—”

“Taking your _pulse_ ,” Thomas said, repressing a sigh. Honestly. “I haven’t got any designs on your virtue, believe me.” Carson’s pulse was strong and steady, if a bit rapid, and his lips and nails were—fortunately—their normal color. “Have you had any more chest pain since last night?”

“No,” Carson said.

“Any pain in your neck or shoulder?”

“No.”

“Shortness of breath?”

“No.”

“Right, then.” Thomas got the tray from the desk and put it on Carson’s lap. “He says to remind you you’re supposed to rest, and he’ll look in on you in the afternoon. Mrs. Hughes’ll probably come up for that,” he added, indicating the tray. 

He turned to go, but Carson said, “Wait.”

Thomas waited.

“Heaven only know what Henry is doing in the breakfast room,” Carson began, then paused.

Nerving himself up to ask Thomas to look in on _that_ , too, Thomas thought, and just barely managed to restrain himself from pointing out that, whatever Lang was doing, it probably didn’t involve pouring sauce on Lady Edith. “Mrs. Hughes is in there with him, and Anna as well. Hope you feel better, Mr. Carson.” He left, closing the door firmly behind him.

Thomas wasn’t at all surprised that Carson had decided that Lang was to blame for last night’s incident, but he _was_ a bit surprised to see everyone else acting as though Lang were in disgrace—including Lang. He slumped into his seat—still between Ethel and O’Brien—and asked, in a defeated tone, “Did Mr. Carson say anything?”

“He wanted to know if everything was all right in the breakfast room,” Thomas answered. “I told him you and Mrs. Hughes had it under control.”

Lang opened his mouth, then closed it again, as Mrs. Hughes made her entrance, and they all stood up. 

Once they were all seated again, Thomas reported to Mrs. Hughes on Carson’s recovery, and once the teapot and toast started making their rounds, continued to Lang, “I wouldn’t worry about it. It isn’t as though anyone’s _died_.” 

“No,” Lang said. “But Lady Edith’s dress will never be the same.”

 _Who gives a fuck_? “She has others.” 

Anna gave him a quelling look, and Mrs. Hughes said, “That’s as may be, but I’m sure she doesn’t like having one of them spoiled.”

Thomas opened his mouth, then stuffed a piece of toast in it, thinking very carefully about what he was going to say next. Swallowing, he said, “Maybe I’ve gotten hold of the wrong end of the stick, but who was it actually spilled the sauce on Lady Edith?”

For a long moment, no one answered. “He was _ill_ ,” Mrs. Hughes said. 

“I realize that,” Thomas said. But he wasn’t the only one, was the point. 

“I got ahead of him somehow,” Lang said. “I had the sauce, and the melba toast, so I was meant to be following him, and—I don’t know what happened. He told me to give him the sauce and then…it all happened very quickly.”

“So things had got a bit muddled,” Thomas translated, “but it wasn’t until Carson worked himself up into a state that anything was actually _spoiled_.”

He watched puzzled looks go around the table, as everyone tried to figure out what he’d gotten wrong in this re-casting of events. There were two things, really—or rather, two things right with it, both nearly unthinkable. 

Finally, Bates voiced the first of them. “I suppose, in the scheme of things, it isn’t very important.”

That one, Thomas had known all along—although he’d done a pretty good job of not thinking about it, until he’d gotten to France. Or maybe a little earlier than that. 

The other one, no one said. But Thomas didn’t really expect any of them to. It had taken him—of all people—quite a while to figure it out. 

After breakfast, he went out into the courtyard for a cigarette, and Anna joined him. “Don’t you have to dress them?” he asked.

“Lady Mary won’t ring for a bit yet, and Lady Edith had a tray earlier—she wanted to get up to the farm.” 

Right; Thomas had forgotten about Lady Edith’s stint as an amateur Land Girl. “Mm.”

Anna hesitated. “I know you mean to help,” she said. “But I’m not sure making a fuss is the best thing for Henry.”

She had a point; hadn’t he told Carson it was best not to draw attention to things? But… “It’s not really about him.”

Anna frowned. “Then what is it about?”

Thomas looked away. There wasn’t much point saying it. None of them would believe him. “What’s Carson’s job?”

Anna made a small sound of exasperation. “He’s the butler.”

“I know, but what’s he do?”

“He…runs the house?” she said doubtfully. “Serves the dinners—or supervises serving the dinners. Um…looks after the wine? And the silver?”

“His job,” Thomas said, and took a long drag on his cigarette. It wasn’t quite _look after your lads_ , no. But it wasn’t that far away, either. He blew the smoke out slowly. “Is to make sure the rest of us—rest of _you­—_ do yours.”

“Oh,” Anna said. “I suppose it is, now that you mention it. A big part of it, anyway.”

“And here’s the thing,” Thomas said. He took another pull from his cigarette, and let it out slowly. “ _Is he any bloody good at it_?”

Anna actually _squeaked_. “Thomas!” she said, once she’d recovered enough to form words. “You can’t….”

“Sure I can,” Thomas said. “I don’t work for him—and even if I did, I could still say it. He isn’t. He’s a bully, and if bullying doesn’t get the results he wants, he’s out of ideas.” He flicked ash from his cigarette. “But that’s not the worst of it. The worst of it is….where’d you all get the idea it was Lang’s—Henry’s—fault, what happened up there?” He jerked his chin in the general direction of the dining room. 

“Well,” Anna said, and stopped. “He must’ve….” She blinked a few times, rapidly, and said, “I’m not sure.”

“Because,” Thomas said gently, “it can’t possibly have been Carson’s, right? And it had to be somebody’s?”

Anna was silent. 

“He’s in charge,” Thomas said. “That means whatever happened, it’s his fault. Even if it wasn’t.” He shrugged. “So both of them cracked a bit, under the massive strain of serving at a dinner party. Lang’s got a much better excuse for it than Carson does.”

“Perhaps,” Anna said carefully, “it’s too soon for him to be working again.”

“Which of them?” Thomas asked. 

Anna gave him a sardonic look.

“Only one of them’s had to take to his bed after last night’s debacle,” Thomas pointed out. He lit another cigarette. “But yeah, might be too soon for him to work under a sadist like Carson. I doubt _my_ nerves could handle it, to be honest.” 

Anna seemed about to say something, but at that moment, Lang stuck his head out the back door. “Lady Mary’s ringing for you,” he said. 

“Oh,” Anna said, glancing over at him. 

“Yeah, I’ll see you later,” Thomas told her. To Lang, he added, “Come here, if you’ve got a minute.”

Warily, Lang exchanged places with Anna. 

“Carson’s a right bastard,” Thomas said, angling his cigarette case toward Lang. 

Lang nodded, taking one.

“They’re all completely cowed by him,” Thomas went on. “I was his punching bag before the war, but…well.” 

“I don’t think I’ll be here much longer,” said Lang. 

“Do you want to be?”

Lang was silent for a moment. “I need to work,” he said finally. “It’s not easy to find a place, with a war record like mine.”

“Suppose not,” Thomas agreed. He smoked and thought for a moment. One thing you could do, with a problem like this, was kick it up the chain. But Thomas couldn’t quite picture his lordship coming up with the solution. It was more of an NCO-shaped problem. “We ought to get Bates in on this,” he said reluctantly. “He was a sergeant. And if we come up with some kind of plan, he can take it to his lordship.”

Lang eyed him. “Why? What’s it to you?”

Thomas had to think about that one for a moment. What _was_ it to him? 

Then everything slotted into place. “Because I’m the fucking corporal,” he said. 

Lang drew his breath in sharply. “I’m not a soldier,” he said. “Not anymore.”

“I am.” He shook his head. “I’ve forgotten—were you at the 14th when the thing with Kingston happened?”

Lang looked blank. 

“He was the one with the broken leg. You’d remember, if you were there. And Corporal Rouse got F.P.?”

“No,” Lang said. “I remember a Corporal Rouse, but…how did a corporal get F.P.?”

So Thomas summarized the story: Kingston’s hysterical paralysis, Rouse’s conviction that it wasn’t, the midnight raids on the x-ray hut, and how Rouse had been caught. “Rouse missed a trick, there—he got into a tug-of-war with Major Winthrop over it, with Kingston as the rope, poor bastard.” And if Thomas wasn’t careful, he could repeat that error, now. Thomas had realized in his discussion with Anna that he was spoiling for a fight with Carson, and it wouldn’t do Lang any good to be in the middle of it. “So when they put Rouse on F.P., they put Kingston on one of my work crews. I don’t think I was wrong to try to stay out of it before—there wasn’t a lot I could have done—but then I had to take a side. And I chose the wrong one.” He skimmed lightly over the first work detail—carrying building materials back and forth, while Rouse, tied to a post, was forced to watch; Lang didn’t need that image in his head—and picked the story up with the grave-digging, from his fawning efforts to appease Major Winthrop, right up until the wet _snap_ of Kingston’s leg. “I can still hear it.” 

Lang shuddered a little. God knew what _he_ was hearing. 

“So I watch Carson have a go at you, and it feels like I’m right back there. Watching him fall on the ground. Only I might be able to get it right this time. Maybe. Or at least make a different mistake.”

“When I—in the dining room, I….” Lang fell silent.

Thomas gave him a moment, then said, “You want to try that again?”

“At the Front,” he said. “I….” He shook his head. “I can’t really talk about it. But I froze up. It was like I couldn’t remember what I was doing there, what I was supposed to do next. And….”

“People got hurt,” Thomas suggested.

Lang nodded. “And when I get….muddled, as you put it…that’s where I go. It feels like I’m right back there,” he echoed Thomas’s words. “Watching it, and there’s something I’m supposed to do, but I don’t know what it is.” He glanced at the cigarette, which had burned down almost to his fingers without him taking so much as a puff off of it, as far as Thomas had noticed. “I don’t think there’s any way I can ever make it come out right.”

#

Anna had hoped to have another word with Thomas, but between one thing and another—in addition to her usual duties, she was keeping an eye on Henry, and the schedule of activities for Mr. Matthew’s visit demanded frequent costume changes for Lady Mary—she scarcely had a chance to catch her breath. She finally managed to sit down in the servants’ hall during the upstairs luncheon—which Henry was serving under Mrs. Hughes’s personal supervision—but of course by then he had long gone up to bed. 

“I didn’t see him again after he went out to smoke,” Mr. Bates said. “He probably didn’t want to be roped in to helping cover for Mr. Carson.”

“Probably,” Anna agreed. That was probably part of it, at least. She hesitated. “Has he—Thomas, I mean—said anything about having trouble with his nerves, since the war?”

Mr. Bates raised his eyebrows. “I doubt he’d say a thing like that to me if I held his feet to an open flame. Why, has he to you?”

“Not exactly,” Anna said. “We were talking about Henry, and he said he didn’t think his nerves could handle working under Mr. Carson, either.” She decided to leave out the part about Mr. Carson being a sadist. 

“Hm,” Bates said. “Well, he’s touchier, since he’s been back.”

“Is he? I’m not sure that’s the word.” He was steadier, in a way—except for things like their conversation this morning, or his outbursts about being blamed for everything. “I suppose it’s more like he actually cares, instead of just saying awful things to get a reaction,” she mused. 

Mr. Bates nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, I think that’s it.” 

Suddenly, Anna remembered Mr. Fitzroy, in Kew Gardens, saying _he takes things to heart_. Perhaps he always had cared, and was just now showing it. 

Mr. Bates went on, “If he does care what people think of him, it’s no surprise he wouldn’t want to work for Mr. Carson again. I’m not sure he’ll ever come around on Thomas.” 

Now Anna remembered Thomas, oddly vulnerable in his dressing gown, asking if they were admitting now that Carson didn’t like him. “Do you think Mr. Carson….” Well, no, she couldn’t ask if Bates thought Mr. Carson was a bully; not here in the servants’ hall. “What do you think of him, in terms of…managing people, I suppose?” Mr. Bates gave her a puzzled look, and she added, “Thomas had some choice words, on the subject.”

“Oh,” said Bates. “I expect he would.” He considered. “I wouldn’t say it’s his best area, no. Look at Thomas, for starters—who’d have guessed there was a hardworking and reasonably pleasant version of him in there? And that sergeant of his in France managed to find it in less than a month. He must be some kind of a genius at getting the most out of his men.” 

“Thomas seems to think a lot of him,” Anna agreed. “The Wardmaster, I mean.” He mentioned him from time to time, usually in the context of something he’d learned from him. 

Bates went on, “I expect Thomas is thinking about how Carson’s way of doing things would work in the Army—and it wouldn’t. In the Army, you get the men they give you, and it’s your job—as an NCO, especially, but for officers, too—to figure out how you’re going to use them to do what needs doing. Our regiment in South Africa was…I shouldn’t be the one to say it, but it’s a pretty elite regiment, the Grendadier Guards. And we still had our share of men you wouldn’t necessarily choose. The real scoundrels, you can kick out, but that sort of thing can destroy a man’s life, so mostly you’ve got to work around their weaknesses, and try to find some way to improve them.”

“Thomas said something about that,” Anna recalled. “He said that if Mr. Carson isn’t getting the results he wants, he just…well, tries more of what he always does.”

Bates nodded. “And here, he can. This being the kind of house it is, he expects to be able to hand-pick his men, and if they’re not up to scratch, he can send them on their way. Until now, he didn’t _need_ to know how to adjust to a subordinate he doesn’t find particularly promising.” Mr. Bates paused. “Well, except for _me_.” 

Anna started to protest, but Mr. Bates said, “No, it’s true. I can’t do some of the things a valet in a house like this normally would—carrying in luggage, waiting at table. I expect I could manage to pitch in somehow, if I had to—in fact, if Mr. Carson’s still in bed tomorrow evening, when we have guests to dine again, I think I had best try—but until now, he’s not had to resort to that, either.”

#

Thomas slept badly, with dreams he didn’t want to think about, and when he woke for the fourth or fifth time, and saw it was only about an hour before his alarm would go, he decided to just get up. Luckily, he was not quite so early as to run into the downstairs tea, and he managed to bolt down the cold food Daisy had set aside for him from lunch, grab his packet of sandwiches, and be out the door without having to really speak to anyone. 

It wasn’t until he was halfway down to the village that he remembered that Carson was supposed to be in bed, and couldn’t possibly have caught him leaving, much less have somehow found out that Thomas had said out loud that he was bad at his job.

It was a quiet time when he arrived at the hospital—a bit before the patients’ dinner—so Thomas gave in to the impulse to look in on Lieutenant Courtenay first, before reporting in officially to the Ward Sister. After all, he wasn’t really on duty yet.

It was a fine, warm day, and most of the ambulatory patients were out taking the air, but Courtenay was lying listlessly on his bed. He must’ve heard Thomas approaching, because he raised his head a little, as if looking to see who had come in. The bandages had been removed, but it was plain he still wasn’t seeing anything.

“It’s Corporal Barrow, sir,” he said, once he was near enough that he could speak softly, and not wake the handful of other patients who were dozing in the ward. 

Courtenay sat up. “Is it that time already?”

“No, sir, I’m a bit early.”

“Oh,” he said. “Are you busy? I mean—did something happen?”

“Not at all,” Thomas said, taking a seat on the still-vacant neighboring bed. “I just couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d come down here and see if I could make myself useful.”

“In that case,” Courtenay said, reaching inside his jacket. “I’ve had a letter, from my people. I don’t really want to know what it says, but I suppose I might as well get it over with.” He held the envelope out in Thomas’s general direction. 

Thomas took the letter out and unfolded it. “It starts, Dear Edward.”

“Wait,” said Courtenay. “Tell me who signed it, first. Please.”

Thomas flipped it over. “Mother.”

Courtenay sighed. “All right. Could be worse.”

“Dear Edward,” Thomas repeated. “We were all very sorry to hear that your condition has not improved. It must be very difficult to send a proper letter when you must ask someone to write it for you.” Was it Thomas’s imagination, or was there something a little pointed in that? He continued, “Given what has happened, Jack has decided to accept the post in London after all. If only you had been so sensible.” Thomas paused. _Really_? 

“Go on.” 

Thomas read on. There were a few lines about Jack and the London position—something in the War Office, it sounded like—and then a bit about the family farm. As he read it, Courtenay shifted uncomfortably. “Of course you understand that things cannot be as they were, and whatever you think, Jack has your best interests at heart.” 

“Stop.”

Thomas stopped. Courtenay didn’t say anything else, and after a moment’s hesitation, Thomas ventured, “Who’s Jack?”

“My younger brother.” Courtenay lay down, throwing his arm across his eyes. “He means to replace me. It’s what he always wanted.”

Oh, _fuck_. Thomas cast about for something to say. “Well, you….” What? Can’t let him? Could he _stop_ him?

“I’m sorry,” Courtenay said, his voice brittle. “I mustn’t bore you.”

Sometimes, Thomas really wondered how the upper class had agreed that _that_ was the phrase to use when you’d accidentally let on that you were having a crisis. It wasn’t as though they could have _discussed_ it. “Look,” he said, then stopped. Not the best choice of words, really. “He wants to—but do you have to _let_ him?” It was at the top of his mind, just now, how you didn’t necessarily have to let people push you around, just because it was what they’d always done, and they’d somehow convinced you that you deserved it. 

“How can I _not_?” Courtenay asked.

“I don’t know, but…you have to fight your corner, don’t you? All my life, they’ve pushed me around, just cause I’m….” No, he couldn’t say that. Everyone might know up at the house, but they didn’t know here. Unless Nurse Crawley had been spreading it around.

Courtenay sat up. “Because you’re what?”

Thomas swallowed hard. “A bastard, for one thing.” Courtenay made a small sound of disagreement, and he said, “No, I mean, really. My mother…I don’t know exactly what happened, but I was born much too soon after the marriage, and her husband knew he wasn’t the one responsible.”

“Oh,” said Courtenay.

“And the reason I’m mentioning it, is I’ve got a younger brother, too. Younger half-brother. They didn’t tell me until I was about school-leaving age, you know. And me dad—the one I thought was me dad—had this clock shop, and…well, they just pushed me out of the way. I went into service, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it, because…because I was fourteen, and he wasn’t really me dad. And mum was dead by then.” 

Courtenay didn’t say anything for a long moment, then reached out and put his hand on Thomas’s knee. It was hard to tell what he meant by it. Hard to tell what Thomas _wanted_ him to mean by it. But he put his hand on top of Courtenay’s, and said, “So you might be blind, but you’re not a fourteen-year-old bastard orphan. There’s got to be _something_ you can use to fight back.” 

“Like what?”

“Your brain, for a start. You’re clever, aren’t you?” He ought to be, up at Oxford. “And….” Something else occurred to him. “Is there an _entail_ , on this farm of yours?” He’d heard enough about entails, before the war, to get the idea you couldn’t just nip somebody out of the line because you wanted to.

“There is, but…I’ll never have a wife, an heir, with…things as they are now. That’ll be the next thing she says in the letter.” He took his hand off Thomas’s knee to point to it. “Go on and look, but I know it is.”

Thomas looked. “You’re right.”

“And Jack’s engaged.”

Thomas nodded, then remembered Courtenay wouldn’t see him doing it. “Yeah,” he said. “She mentions that, too.” He scanned the rest of the letter—there wasn’t much of it—to see if there were any other objections. There weren’t, just a mention of finding a “servant to look after you.” 

Now that was an idea, for Thomas, after the war. Looking after a crippled gentleman. He put that thought aside, and said, “But so what? Lord Grantham never had a son, and that doesn’t mean he isn’t the earl now.”

“It isn’t the same,” Courtenay said. 

“No, but…what have you actually got to _do_ , running the farm? You aren’t out there plowing the fields yourself, are you?”

“Of course not. But I’ll make—would have made—all the decisions about what to plant, and where and when, and improvements on the farm.” He shook his head. “And going around to the tenants and advising them.” Despairingly, he said, “I can’t run the farm if I don’t know what’s _happening_ on it! They could just _say_ they’ve done the planting, and bunk off for a pint, and I’d never know.”

“So you’ll need someone go round with you, and describe what he sees,” Thomas said. “He’d need to know enough about farming to understand what he’s seeing,” which put Thomas right out, if he’d been thinking along those lines, which he wasn’t. “And be absolutely trustworthy, so you can rely on what he’s telling you.” That put Thomas out, too. “Could be a job for a younger brother, if you had a better one, but in the circumstances, probably have to look elsewhere.” 

“You make it all sound so easy,” Courtenay said. 

“Not easy,” Thomas answered. “But…possible.”

“You know,” Courtenay said, “when you talk like that, I almost believe you.”

“You should,” Thomas said. Other ambulatory patients were starting to drift back into the ward now, and he’d best not let them see him sitting around. “And I should probably help them with the dinner, since I’m here,” he said, standing up.

“Of course,” Courtenay said, a little stiffly. “I’ve taken up too much of your time.”

“No,” Thomas said, then fumbled for what to say next. He hadn’t? Thomas enjoyed it? It was his job? Instead of any of those, he blurted out, “We could go fishing.”

“What?”

“I’ve got Tuesday afternoon off,” he explained. “And…well, we could try it. Supposed to be a decent trout stream on the estate.” Not that he had any business inviting people to fish in it, but Nurse Crawley would help; he was nearly sure of it. 

“All right,” said Courtenay. “It seems I have an empty spot in my social calendar.” 

“Right,” Thomas said. “I’ll, ah, make the arrangements.” 

Fortunately, Nurse Crawley was on board. “Of course,” she said, as they dished up the patients’ dinners. “That seems like just the thing to lift his spirits. I’ll ask Papa tonight, but I don’t see how he can refuse.”

“Thank you,” Thomas said. “I meant to say something to you first, but he seemed down in the dumps, so….”

“Should we try to get up a party, do you think?” she asked. “I’m on duty that afternoon, but Cousin Matthew should still be here, and…well, I’m not sure who else we might be able to find, but I can ask around.”

That—Courtenay going fishing with other gentlemen, and Thomas along as a servant—was a bit more proper than what Thomas had had in mind, but…. “It’ll be his first time fishing, since he’s been blind,” he pointed out. “Might make him a bit self-conscious, having strangers watching.”

“You’re right,” she said. “Then I’ll just ask Papa to lend some fishing gear, and recommend a spot. Once he’s got the hang of it, perhaps we can try something more elaborate.” She took on a speculative look. “You know, I’m sure he isn’t the only one missing country sports. If Papa doesn’t kick too much, we might arrange more outings for the patients.”

Thomas decided not to remind her that, at the moment, they weren’t keeping many convalescents. That could change again, once the Push was over. “We could,” he agreed.

Before she left for the evening, Nurse Crawley handed him a book she’d found, about the rehabilitation of the blind. “I’ve been finding out about how to help him learn to walk with a stick, and so on,” she explained. “We can start on that tomorrow.”

Thomas stayed late at the hospital the next morning, helping Lieutenant Courtenay and Nurse Crawley with the first lesson in what was apparently called “cane travel.” It went well enough, Thomas thought, though Courtenay complained of feeling like a “priceless ass,” making his way up and down the ward. And the cane did make something of a racket, thwacking against the floor and the legs of beds and so on. They agreed to try having the next session outdoors, and Thomas agreed to come in early that afternoon for it.

Up at the house, he found that they’d all survived the night. Lang and Anna had managed to serve the dinner—to the family only this time—without dumping anything on anyone. Carson was still confined to his bed, but Thomas was not called upon to examine him again—fortunately, as reports from the field indicated he was becoming increasingly obstreperous. 

“You know Mr. Matthew, Mrs. Crawley, and the Dowager are dining here again tomorrow night,” Bates said, as Thomas shoveled in his late breakfast. “He’s agreed to stay in bed—I gather Mrs. Hughes threatened to tie him down if he didn’t—but he doesn’t want Henry anywhere near it. I said I’d help, but Mrs. Hughes talked him round to having Anna and Ethel do it.”

“So what’s Lang going to do?” Thomas asked. “Twiddle his thumbs and wait to get sacked?”

Bates sighed. “I’m not sure what the alternative is.” 

Thomas wasn’t either—he’d come up with an idea, but it was one he’d not have liked, in Lang’s place. “Has Basset managed to hang on to any under-gardeners?”

Bates gave him a puzzled look. “No. And we can’t have an under-gardener waiting at table. We’d be better off asking Branson, if it came to that.”

“I don’t care about the dinner party,” Thomas said impatiently. “For Lang. It was outdoor work they had us doing with them at the Clearing Station. He was all right with it. I doubt he’ll fancy it much—I wouldn’t—but he might do that for a couple of months, then try the dining room again if he’s feeling a bit steadier.”

Bates went on looking at him, a strange expression on his face. “Or not,” Thomas said, with a sigh. He’d forgotten where he was, for a moment there. 

“No,” Bates said. “That could work, if he’s interested. But he might prefer to try another house, than go that far down the ladder.”

“Maybe,” Thomas said. He shrugged. “He said he was having trouble finding a place, though. And I get the impression that feeling like he’s being watched, is part of the problem. He might do better behind the scenes. That way, if he has trouble, he can just collect himself and move on.”

Bates nodded. “I see. I suppose my role in this is to put it to his lordship?”

“Naturally,” Thomas answered. Bates was the sergeant, after all; dealing with officers was his job. “You could put it to Lang, too, if you see him—I don’t have time to make an opportunity to talk to him; they want me back at the hospital early.” That was true—Nurse Crawley and Lieutenant Courtenay did. It wasn’t his problem if Bates thought “they” meant somebody else.

“Fine,” said Bates, with a long-suffering sigh.

Thomas took himself off to bed, and slept decently enough—no dreams about being tied to a post in the dining room while Lang dragged a broken leg around in front of him, at least—then got away clean to the hospital a bit after tea-time.

Nurse Crawley had set up a sort of obstacle course on the lawn, using a few chairs, and Lieutenant Courtenay worked his way through it—slowly at first, but then with increasing confidence. “That’s right, sir,” Thomas said—more formal, since Nurse Crawley was present. “If you move the stick fast enough, you won’t have to slacken your pace.”

It was nearly verbatim from the book, and so was Nurse Crawley’s addition. “And check the width of the space, as well as any possible obstruction.”

Courtenay fetched up against the back of one of the chairs, and as he was working his way round it, Thomas noticed Major Clarkson approaching. “Major, three o’clock,” he murmured. The book had also discussed how to use the numbers of an imaginary clock-face to indicate directions to a blind person, and they’d worked on it a little.

Courtenay straightened up, turning in that direction, and murmured back, “Has he got a hat on?”

“No.” Not that it made much difference to Courtenay—he didn’t, either. Thomas did, but since the Major was hatless, there was no need for any of them to salute. 

Nurse Crawley gave both of them a puzzled look, but there was no time to explain; the Major was nearly there. Thomas came to attention, and Courtenay straightened up a bit. 

“Lieutenant Courtenay!” Clarkson said. “Well done. You’re making good progress.”

“Thanks to my saviors, sir,” Courtenay said. A polite formula, perhaps, but Thomas wasn’t sure he’d ever been described as someone savior before. 

Clarkson continued as if Courtenay hadn’t spoken. “So you’ll be pleased to hear that we’re all agreed that it’s time for you to continue your treatment elsewhere.”

Thomas wondered _who_ had agreed to that, but he didn’t have time to think about it—Courtenay was very plainly _not_ pleased. “What?” he said, in a small voice.

“At Farley Hall,” Clarkson amplified. You’re not ill anymore,” he said kindly. “All you need is time to adjust to your condition, and the staff at Farley can help with that.” 

Thomas glanced worriedly at Courtenay. He was about to speak, but Courtenay beat him to it. “But sir,” he said, a hint of desperation in his tone, “these two _are_ helping me, here.”

Now Major Clarkson began to look impatient. “I’m sure Nurse Crawley and Corporal Barrow are doing their best, but they’re not trained in specialist care.”

Courtenay practically _interrupted_ , saying, “Please, don’t send me away. Not yet.” 

“Sir,” Thomas said reasonably, “surely we—”

Major Clarkson turned a sharp look on him, and Thomas shut his mouth and braced up. 

Thomas had, at least, succeeded in drawing fire away from Courtenay; Major Clarkson’s voice was gentler as he continued,” Lieutenant, you must know that every one of our beds is needed for the injured and dying from Arras, hmm?” 

Courtenay made only a small sound of negation, and shrugged off Major Clarkson’s attempt at an avuncular pat on the arm. 

Thomas tried again. “Sir, could I speak to you in private?”

The look Major Clarkson gave him was, perhaps, _slightly_ less hostile. “Yes,” he said. “I’ll be in my office.”

“Yes, sir,” Thomas said.

Major Clarkson took himself off. “What are we going to do?” Nurse Crawley said, before he was quite out of earshot.

“Shh!” Thomas said, holding up one finger. When the Major’s back disappeared from view, he said, “All right, he’s gone. I don’t know, but it’s going to be tricky. Something’s got his back up. What happened before I got here?”

“I’m not sure,” Nurse Crawley said. “He asked what I was doing, when I was setting up the chairs and things. Then he wanted to know whose idea it had been, and I said it was mine, but I’d discussed it with you and Cousin Isobel. Sister Crawley, I mean,” she corrected herself.

“Right,” Thomas said, with a sigh. “I didn’t think to clear it with either of the medical officers.” He’d barely seen them, being on night duty, but that wasn’t an excuse. He could at least have reminded Nurse Crawley to do it. 

“Cousin—Sister Crawley thought it was a good idea,” Nurse Crawley said, a little belligerently. 

“She’s not the commanding officer,” Thomas pointed out. He shook his head. “I’d best not keep him waiting.”

“Should I come too?” she asked. “I can explain, about what we’re doing.”

She could argue with him, she meant. “Better not,” Thomas advised, remembering what a mistake it had been to take Rawlins along to make their “official complaint” to the billeting officer in France. “Let me see what I can do first, all right?”

The others agreed, and Thomas headed inside, trying quickly to put his thoughts in some kind of order. He couldn’t risk sounding like he was questioning Major Clarkson’s medical judgment—not when he’d had enough of that from Sister Crawley. But what _did_ he know, that Clarkson didn’t? 

Well, he knew Courtenay. Which was all perfectly all right and aboveboard; nurses and orderlies spent more time with patients than doctors did. Doctors relied on them for information about patients—but just information, not conclusions, or recommendations. Certainly not _demands_. 

Right. He could do this. 

Major Clarkson was standing behind his desk when he got there, and not looking at all pleased. “What is it you wanted, Corporal?” he said brusquely. 

“Sir,” he said, keeping his tone humble, his accent working-class-but-trying. “I spoke out of turn and it was wrong of me. It’s just that I’m worried, for Lieutenant Courtenay.” He paused. Major Clarkson didn’t make any sign of encouragement, but he didn’t order him to shut up, either, so he continued, “I’ve been helping him with his letters home, you see, reading them to him and writing his replies.” That was a lie—he’d only read the one letter, and while they’d discussed a reply, they hadn’t gotten as far as writing one. But he couldn’t say that they’d been having heart-to-heart chats in the middle of the night. “So I’ve learned a bit about what’s going on in his mind.” 

Major Clarkson sighed. “And what is that?”

“He’s…having a lot of trouble seeing a way forward, with his condition. And his family, unfortunately, seem to feel the same way. They’ve given up on him. So this, us sending him away, seems like more of the same. Sir. I know there are other people more qualified to help him than Nurse Crawley and me, but he trusts us. And at this early stage, with everything so uncertain…that seems important.”

Major Clarkson sat, resting his forehead on his hand, and rubbed his eyelids with his thumb and ring finger. “I see. You may be right, Corporal, that staying here for a little while longer would be best for Lieutenant Courtenay.” Thomas’s heart leapt, but the Major continued, “The trouble is, we have a full convoy coming tomorrow afternoon, of wounded and dying from Arras. I have to think about what’s best for _those_ patients, too.”

“Yes, sir,” Thomas said. He did, of course. But it was only one bed—surely they could cram Lieutenant Courtenay in _somewhere_. 

“They have urgent medical needs,” Major Clarkson continued. “Needs for the kind of care we _are_ set up to provide here. And once they arrive, I’ll need you and Nurse Crawley to focus on your regular duties. You won’t have time to give Lieutenant Courtenay special attention.”

Thomas briefly considered pointing out that he was not, strictly speaking, on duty at the moment. With a convoy coming, he’d be pulling extra duty whether he wanted to or not. “Yes, sir,” Thomas said, trying to think if there was anything else he could say. He couldn’t mention the fishing plans—likely, with the convoy on Monday, his time off would be cancelled anyway. 

Well, that was something he could say. “I’d like to be able to tell him I’ll go and look in on him, on my afternoon off. See how he’s settling in. I feel like that might help a bit. Would that be all right, sir?”

Major Clarkson nodded. “Yes, I can tell the staff at Farley Hall to expect you. When?”

“It was set for Tuesday, sir, but….”

“Let’s say Thursday,” Major Clarkson said. “Things ought to have settled down again by then.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” 

“All right.” Major Clarkson glanced at something—a duty roster, by the looks of it. “I’ll need you on duty early tomorrow, to receive the convoy. It’s due at three o’clock.”

It wouldn’t be at all a good idea for him to stay on to see the Farley Hall convoy off, then—those usually left at about ten in the morning. “Yes, sir.”

“But I’ll ask Sister Crawley if she can spare Nurse Crawley to accompany the patients going to Farley Hall in the morning,” Major Clarkson said. “Perhaps that will be of some comfort to Lieutenant Courtenay, as well.”

“Yes, sir,” Thomas agreed. He wished it was him, but…. “I expect that will help.”

“Very good. And the two of you can help him pack his things.”

With that, Major Clarkson dismissed him. 

Thomas went back outside and found Nurse Crawley and Lieutenant Courtenay. They were sitting on a bench near where she had set up the obstacle course—so close their knees were nearly touching. Thomas fought down a stab of unbecoming jealousy. 

“There he is,” Thomas heard Nurse Crawley say to Courtenay. More loudly, she asked, “What did he say?”

Thomas shook his head. “No joy,” he said, perching on the end of the bench. He explained about the convoy. “He was sympathetic, but he pointed out we’ll be too busy for anything extra, even if you could stay, sir.” 

“Damn,” Courtenay said, his voice brittle. Then, “I beg your pardon, Nurse Crawley.”

“It’s all right,” she said. 

Thomas got out his cigarettes and offered them around. “He did say, Nurse Crawley, that you can go along to Farley Hall in the morning, as long as Sister Crawley can spare you, and help get Lieutenant Courtenay and the others settled.”

“Oh,” she said, lighting a cigarette. “I’m sure she’ll say yes!”

“That’s very kind of him,” Courtenay said dully, fumbling for the lighter that Nurse Crawley was attempting to hand to him. 

Thomas resisted the impulse to take it away and light Courtenay’s cigarette for him. Not only would it look funny, but it was better for his independence to manage what he could on his own. “And I’ll come and visit you on my afternoon off,” he said. “It’s been changed to Thursday, because of the new patients, and I’m not sure if we’ll be able to manage fishing, but we can at least take a walk.” Some of the convalescent homes were organized along hospital-like lines, while others had the atmosphere of a permanent house-party. He wasn’t sure which kind Farley Hall was. 

“Thank you.” Courtenay breathed in sharply, and Thomas looked away—not that Courtenay would know either way, but if he was going to cry, Thomas would just as soon not watch. 

“I’m sure it’ll be all right,” Nurse Crawley said bravely. “I expect everyone there is just as nice as we are.”

“I don’t see how,” Courtenay said, sounding as though he had a head cold.

Thomas shifted further onto the bench, so that his shoulder brushed against Courtenay’s. He thought about sitting on the steps of the dugout with Rouse and Rawlins, a few hours before he was shot, and taken away from them forever. “Nobody warns you, about this part of war,” he said. “You get attached to people, and you know anybody can be killed, but nobody tells you about how they can just move you around, like….”

His voice wobbled a little, and Nurse Crawley glanced over at him, across Lieutenant Courtenay. 

Courtenay reached out, and patted his knee. “Like pieces on a chessboard,” he said. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, shakily. “I’ve heard, like cattle, but we have a dairy herd…d’you know, they have friends, cows? A good dairyman knows which ones like each other. They produce better, they’re easier to handle, if they get to stay with their friends.”

Thomas thought of the barn, and how the Wardmaster had kept them there, together, as long as he could. “I didn’t know that.” 

“Nor did I,” Nurse Crawley said. Then she broke the solemnity of the moment by saying, “And I rather hope it isn’t beef for dinner, now.”

They laughed a bit at that—far more than it warranted—and in due course they saw Lieutenant Courtenay back to his bed, and helped him pack his things. 

Thomas hoped that he and Courtenay would have a talk later on, once the ward was settled down for the night, but when the time came, Courtenay said that he was, “Rather tired, actually.” 

And Thomas couldn’t really argue with him. “Yes, sir,” he said. “You’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

He went and occupied himself in the main ward for a while—updating the log-book, checking that the linens and the drug cupboards were fully stocked, ready for whatever the afternoon convoy would bring them. Selfishly, though, he hoped that Lieutenant Courtenay would have trouble sleeping, and after a couple of hours—when the rest of the hospital was fast asleep—he crept back into the smaller ward. 

Drip. 

Drip.

Thomas’s first thought was that the roof had gone—absurd, since the night was perfectly clear—his second that someone had pissed the bed—not an uncommon occurrence, dealing with the sick. But while he was thinking about it, his feet carried him further into the room, toward Courtenay’s bed, and the slowly-spreading puddle was far too dark for the obvious explanation. 

No longer caring whether he woke the rest of the ward—or the rest of the village, for that matter—Thomas hurried the last few steps. “Sir? Lieutenant Courtenay? _Edward_?”

The arm that Thomas grabbed for was slick with blood, laid open from wrist to elbow. The other wasn’t much better. But at Courtenay’s neck, he felt a slow, faint pulse. 

By now, some of the other gentlemen on the ward had woken up. “I say, what’s all the—”

“Dash it!”

“—all the racket.”

A louder voice cut over the chatter. “Corporal!” At the same instant, the overhead lights came on. Private Parker, who was on duty tonight. “What’s going on?”

“He’s alive,” Thomas said, pressing a wad of sheet to the worse of the wounds. “Get me some—no, go get—” He took a deep breath. “Bring me a dressing-tray, and then run for the MO. Now!”

Parker went. He brought the dressing-tray in record time, and then disappeared again. Thomas quickly packed the left arm with lint, and wrapped it with gauze, tight as he dared. He’d worry about infection later; the first thing was to slow the bleeding. How much had he lost already? A lot, but it was hard to guess the quantity, when it was all spread out on the floor like that; Captain Allenby had said so, once. 

The right arm wasn’t cut as badly—Courtenay must have done the other first, and then fumbled the blade. He wrapped it, then when back to put more pressure on the other, holding it closed with his hands. “Come on, Edward,” he murmured. “Hang in there, all right? You’ve got to get home to those cows of yours. So you can keep them with their friends.” 

It seemed like hours before Major Clarkson arrived. Hours, or maybe seconds. 

They moved Courtenay into the prep room, and Major Clarkson got to work stitching up his arms. “How?” Major Clarkson asked. “How did he do this?”

“I don’t know,” Thomas said. “He—I don’t know. I should’ve stayed with him.” 

Clarkson’s voice gentled. “You couldn’t have known. None of us could have.” He finished the stitching, and felt Courtenay’s pulse at his neck. “He’s shocky. Parker! A bottle of saline and an intravenous kit—now!”

Parker brought in the requested items. “Is he going to make it, sir?”

“I don’t know,” Clarkson said, examining Courtenay’s right arm. He must have been able to find a vein Courtenay had missed, because he put the needle in there. “He may have lost too much blood.”

There was a solution for that, Thomas knew. It would have to be put to Clarkson delicately, and he’d no idea how to even begin— “Transfusion,” he blurted out.

The look Major Clarkson turned on him wasn’t the reproachful glare that Thomas had expected. It was almost sorrowful. “We don’t have the facilities for the necessary testing,” he said, gently. “Or the time, even if we did, I expect. The saline solution will make up the missing volume. That _may_ be enough.”

Thomas shook his head. “No, we don’t need to—I’m in the right group.” He dredged up the phrase Captain Linwood had used. “Universal donor.” 

“What?” Clarkson demanded.

“They tested us, at my old unit,” Thomas said. Stumbling over his words, he explained about the transfusion scheme. “I didn’t actually donate, while I was there—they’d just started it before I left—but I was in the donor pool.”

Major Clarkson looked at him speculatively. “Have you seen it done?”

“Yes, sir,” Thomas said, and forebore to mention that he’d been bleeding out at the time. 

Clarkson glanced down at Courtenay, and up at the bottle of clear fluid that was draining into his veins. “Let’s see how he does with the saline, first,” he said. “If that proves sufficient, there’ll be no need to experiment.”

As the saline dripped in, Major Clarkson examined Courtenay every few minutes—listening to his heart, measuring his blood pressure, peering at his gums for signs of cyanosis. After each of these checks, he shook his head. Finally, when the bottle was nearly empty, he said, “Are you absolutely certain, about your blood group?”

“Yes, sir,” Thomas said. 

“Because if you’re mistaken, a transfusion of the wrong blood group could kill him.”

“I’m sure,” Thomas said. “At least, I’m sure that Captain Linwood said I was in the donor group, and I’m sure he was careful about the testing. They did at least a few dozen transfusions while I was there, and I didn’t hear of any mistakes.” 

“All right,” Major Clarkson said. “Parker! Bring me another intravenous kit, and a large-bore needle.”

Parker brought them. “What are you going to do, sir?”

“I’m going,” he said grimly, “to put some of Corporal Barrow’s blood into Lieutenant Courtenay.” 

“Blimey,” said Parker. “Can you do that?”

“We’re about to find out.” As he rigged up the IV kit so that it would have a needle at each end, Major Clarkson said, “I expect you know, one of the risks of this procedure is that it’s difficult to tell exactly how much blood we’re taking out of you.”

“Yes, sir,” Thomas said. “Captain Linwood would do about twenty minutes’ worth, but I’m not sure what size needle he used,” he admitted. 

“You must say, if you start to feel lightheaded.” 

“Yes, sir.” Noticing that Parker was watching, wide-eyed, as Major Clarkson stuck the needles into him and Lieutenant Courtenay in turn, Thomas told him, “I’m meant to get a cup of tea and a biscuit for this. Vital part of the process.”

Parker ran and got them.

When Major Clarkson ended the transfusion, Courtenay remained very pale and still, but the Major assured Thomas that his heartbeat was more regular, and the color of his gums promising. 

Thomas stayed with Courtenay the rest of the night. He wasn’t sure he was meant to—suspected, in fact, that he was not—but nobody actually told him he was needed elsewhere. The last instruction Major Clarkson had given him was to rest, after his blood loss, and no one could say he wasn’t doing _that_. They’d brought a chair, for Thomas to sit in while he was giving blood, and he dozed in that. 

Courtenay woke, a bit before dawn. “What,” he said, lifting a hand to his face. Then, “Oh, _damn_.”

“It’s all right, sir,” Thomas said, blinking sleep out of his eyes. “You just rest.”

“Barrow?” Courtenay said.

“Yes.” Thomas took his hand, on the pretext of examining the bandages on his arms. “Be careful not to pull the stitches.”

He groaned, but didn’t pull his hand away from Thomas’s. “So I didn’t even manage to top myself properly. Typical.”

“If it’s any consolation, you came very close,” Thomas told him. “I had to talk the Major into giving you a blood transfusion. First one ever done in this hospital.”

“I suppose it would be churlish of me to say you needn’t have bothered.”

“It would,” Thomas said. “And it’s my blood he gave you, so mind you keep it where it belongs. If I wanted it on the floor, I’d put it there myself.” 

“Yours?” Courtenay said, turning his head in Thomas’s direction. “All right, then. I suppose I’d better keep it.” He drifted off.

Early in the morning, they moved Courtenay back to his regular bed—to avoid gossip, said Sister Crawley, who had gotten wind of the night’s events somehow, and turned up first thing. Thomas decided not to point out that he’d woken the entire ward by yelling when he’d found him. 

Courtenay roused slightly while they moved him. “What’s—Barrow?”

“I’m right here, sir.”

“Where are they taking me?”

“Just back to your bed. Everything’s been tidied up,” he added. Someone had mopped up the blood and changed the bedding, presumably while Thomas had been napping in the other room. 

Once the orderlies who were carrying the stretcher put Courtenay on the bed, Thomas dismissed them. “I’ll get him settled in, thanks.”

Once they had gone, Courtenay said, “What now? Will they still….”

They couldn’t possibly—could they? “I shouldn’t think so, sir,” he said. “Just try to rest, all right?”

By the time he’d fallen asleep, Major Clarkson and Sister Crawley had disappeared into Clarkson’s office. Thomas, after making sure that Courtenay was really fast asleep and that there were no sharp objects in his reach, went there, and knocked on the door. 

“Yes?” said Clarkson.

“It’s Corporal Barrow, sir.”

“Come in.” 

Thomas went in. “Sir. Lieutenant Courtenay was wondering what’s going to happen next.” 

“We were just talking about that,” Major Clarkson said, waving him further into the room. 

Sister Crawley, apparently picking up a point she had been making before the interruption, said, “Many of the facilities for war neuroses are very good. Not at all like one imagines.”

“He hasn’t got a war neurosis,” Major Clarkson rumbled. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Attempting suicide is a military offense.” 

Thomas’s stomach dropped into his boots. “Sir—”

Major Clarkson went on, “It’s difficult to imagine anyone being cruel enough to make a point of it, in the circumstances, but we shan’t risk it. I’ll put his name down for a specialist center for the blind. The waiting lists are very long; by the time they have a place for him, the marks will have faded.” He eyed Thomas. “Does that suit you, Corporal?”

“Yes, sir,” Thomas said, faintly. 

“Good,” said Major Clarkson. “You look half-dead. Get another cup of tea, and go sleep in the prep room. Someone will wake you when we need you.”

“Yes, sir,” he repeated. Thomas suspected he looked a good deal worse than he felt—with his coloring, all he had to do if he wanted to look ill was affect a listless expression—but he _was_ feeling awfully drained. Which made sense, since he had been. He did as he was told—though he did stop and check on Courtenay on his way.

Finding him resting comfortably—and enough staff at their posts to notice if anything went wrong—Thomas slept fairly well. Since the stretcher-bed where they’d had Courtenay in the prep room would have to be re-made before the convoy anyway, there could be no reasonable objection to his sleeping on it, and it was a damn sight more comfortable than the chair where he’d spent the latter part of the night. 

As he slept, he was vaguely aware of the usual hospital business going on beyond the door, but nobody bothered him until the afternoon, when Nurse Crawley came in to wake him, with a tray. “I’ve brought you something to eat,” she said. “We still have a couple of hours before the convoy.”

“Thank you,” Thomas said vaguely, sitting up. 

She put the tray on his lap, saying, “It’s gone a bit cold, I’m afraid, but the tea’s hot.”

It was boiled meat and potatoes—left from the patients’ lunch, no doubt, and more than just a bit cold, but he was glad enough to have it. “If Carson knew you were bringing me a tray, he’d have a heart attack for real,” he pointed out.

She stifled a giggle. “He is a fusspot, isn’t he? We’ll take the secret to our graves.”

Thomas supposed the difference between a _fusspot_ and a _tyrant_ could be one of perspective. Maybe. 

As Thomas ate, Nurse Crawley perched on the chair he’d sat in last night. “They told me what happened with Lieutenant Courtenay. It must’ve been awful, finding him like that.”

“It was,” Thomas said tersely, and concentrated on chewing for a moment. “He’s all right?”

She nodded. “I’ve just come from him—Doctor Clarkson gave him something to help him rest.”

“Probably the best thing for him,” Thomas noted. 

“Doctor Clarkson was most anxious to make sure we know that he still doesn’t agree about Lieutenant Courtenay,” she added, sardonically. “Even though he’ll be staying, now. Apparently, ‘this distressing incident only shows that emotional involvement is no substitute for specialist care.’” 

“If he says so,” Thomas said. 

She went on, a bit condescendingly, “I expect he’s not wrong, that if Lieutenant Courtenay were really confident in managing his condition, he’d not have been so distraught—but we’d only been working with him for a few days! It’s not surprising we hadn’t got that far yet.” 

Not wanting to contradict either her or Major Clarkson, Thomas made a noise of vague agreement. 

She continued, “But then he started talking about how many of the patients would like to stay longer in a familiar place, if only we had the room—and Cousin Isobel and I had the most marvelous idea!” 

“What’s that?” Thomas asked warily. 

“Downton.” She went on to explain how they had “heaps of room” in which wounded officers could convalesce, and the hospital staff would be able to look in on them much more conveniently than at Farley Hall. “They can go up to the house when they’re able to walk and don’t need round-the-clock care, and then on to Farley Hall for the last few weeks of recuperation before their medical boards,” she explained. “That way, the ones who are nearly well and need only to gain strength can be as active as they like, and not disturb the ones who need rest.” 

“Sounds very sensible,” Thomas said, gulping his tea. “What do his lordship and her ladyship think of this plan?” He already knew what Carson would think of it.

Nurse Crawley wilted a little. “We haven’t asked them yet,” she admitted. “But surely they’ll understand how beneficial it would be, and how important it is for us to do our part. They _must_.”

Thomas had considerable doubts about that, but said only, “You’d know better than I would.”

After a quick wash and brush-up, Thomas went back on duty. Fortunately, the other orderlies had managed most of what needed to be done to prepare for the convoy—making up the beds, preparing trays with the materials for dressing-changes, making sure all the instruments were sterilized and put away. The main things left to do were to set up the prep room—it needed disinfecting, too, since they’d treated Courtenay in there—and the operating theater. 

They got those things finished in the nick of time, and Thomas had his orderlies out front waiting when the ambulances pulled up. It was their largest convoy yet—nearly two dozen cases, most of them still in their uniforms from the battlefield. Many had field dressings on their wounds, suggesting they’d had no medical care beyond that basic first aid—and, presumably, the usual morphine and cigarettes on the journey. 

Thomas’s job, as usual, was initial triage as they came off the ambulances—flagging those patients who should be seen by one of the medical officers right away. This was the first time in his experience at the Downton hospital that the _most_ seriously wounded patients weren’t in that group. He sent two—an abdomen bloated with gas gangrene, and one poor bugger with only half a face—to beds in corners, behind screens, to be looked at when things slowed down. 

Rounding out the serious cases were couple of raging infections, a head wound whom the ambulance orderly reported had been unconscious since he’d come off the boat, and one who’d had all four limbs blown off—what the orderlies at the Royal Orthopedic had called a “basket case,” the joke being that you didn’t need a stretcher to carry one; a basket would do. Apart from those, they had the usual assortment of walking cases: bullet holes and shrapnel wounds, missing limbs and gas cases. All of them had to be settled into beds, be given baths and clean clothes, and have their dressings changed and their wounds examined.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, Branson—of all people—wandered in, carrying a picnic basket. Thomas supposed her ladyship must be behind it—not even Branson would do something as gormless as that all on his own—but she certainly hadn’t told him to stand around in the middle of everything, jawing to Nurse Crawley.

Thomas, on his way to dispose of some soiled bandages, made a slight detour to bring him by the pair. “Branson,” he snapped. “If you haven’t any work of your own to do, you can hand out the tea and cigarettes.” 

Branson opened his mouth to make some reply, but Thomas didn’t stick around to hear it—one of the new orderlies was waving him over to look at what turned out to be a gangrenous foot.

“You’re right,” Thomas told him. “One of the MOs had best have a look at that.” On a more ordinary day, in fact, he’d have called one of them over immediately; as things were, it went on Major Clarkson’s list of cases to see before he finished for the day.

They were more or less run off their feet well into the evening; Thomas was in and out of the small ward, and usually managed to glance in Courtenay’s direction on his way, but there wasn’t a spare moment to speak to him—and, him being blind, it wasn’t as though Thomas could catch his eye to let him know he was taking notice of him. 

When it came time to hand out the supper trays, though, Thomas contrived to take Courtenay his. “Are you feeling any better, sir?” he asked, setting the tray across Courtenay’s lap.

Courtenay glanced at—or rather, turned his head toward—the new patients to either side of him, before saying unconvincingly, “Yes, quite well.”

Right; they could hardly talk as they had when the ward was half-empty. “Good,” he said heartily, and began orienting Courtenay to what was on his plate, again using the clock-face system. “You’ve got a breaded cutlet at six o’clock—it goes from about four to half-past seven. Then from half-past seven to midnight, boiled carrots….” 

“Thank you, Barrow,” Courtenay said, picking up his knife and fork with a slight wince—the movement must have pulled at his stitches. 

“Would you like me to cut it for you, sir?”

Courtenay sighed. “Not particularly, but perhaps you had better.” As Thomas did so, he said, “It seems I’ve managed to make things worse for myself.”

Thomas didn’t quite know what to say to that, and concentrated on cutting the cutlet into bite-sized pieces. “There you are, sir.” 

Then another patient spilled a glass of milk on himself, allowing Thomas to make a speedy escape. 

A couple of hours later, they’d finally got the patients settled down to sleep, and the day shift was dismissed to their billets and their own dinners. Thomas was about ready for some dinner as well, but remembered, belatedly, that since he hadn’t been back to the house, he also hadn’t stopped by the kitchen for his usual packet of sandwiches. If he’d thought of it sooner, he could likely have scrounged something from the patients’ suppers—it was brought over in Dixies, much like how rations were taken to the Front, and there was usually some left in them—but the Dixies had already been taken back to the house of the woman who cooked for the hospital.

After seeing that the night shift knew what they were supposed to be doing—due to the large number of new cases, he had two orderlies and a VAD—he went over to the tea urn, hoping vaguely that there might be some biscuits lying around. 

There were no biscuits to be had, but half-hidden behind a nest of unwashed cups and a box of standard-issue cigarettes, Thomas spotted Branson’s picnic basket. If Nurse Crawley hadn’t gotten around to eating its contents….

She hadn’t. Thomas happily polished off a wedge of game pie, a slab of Battenberg cake, and a couple of deviled quail’s eggs. If anyone objected—or even noticed—he’d point out that it was unpatriotic to let food go to waste when there was a war on. 

Satisfied, he made another walk round the wards. The dying had been grouped together, for convenience’s sake, and were under the care of Nurse Bellamy. She was one of the new VADs, but had worked in a hospital in Manchester prior to being posted here, so she had things well in hand. “Poor Captain Haverford hasn’t got much further to go, I don’t think,” she said, adjusting the pillow under the facial wound’s head. 

Thomas nodded. The man’s breathing was labored and very wet-sounding. “I shouldn’t think so.”

The gas gangrene was resting comfortably enough—an empty hypodermic in a tray on the bedside table explained why—but the other, the more severe of the two raging infection cases, was restless with fever. His bedside table held a dish of water and a cloth; Nurse Bellamy had evidently been bathing him with cool water before deciding the facial wound’s need was greater. 

Thomas went to pick up the task where she’d left off, but before he’d done more than wring out the cloth, she was taking it from him. “It’s all right, Corporal—I can manage.”

He nodded, and left her to it. 

The main ward had a few men tossing and turning sleeplessly; Thomas joined Parker in checking if they needed anything, and in bringing cigarettes and glasses of water to those that did. 

The small ward was quiet, but when Thomas walked by Courtenay’s bed, the Lieutenant lifted his head. “It’s Barrow, sir,” he said softly. 

“Thought so,” Courtenay said, letting his head drop back onto the pillow. 

It was the part of the evening when they often talked, but the bed Thomas sat on to do so was occupied now, and with the patients squeezed in as tightly as they were, they couldn’t say anything they didn’t want overheard. But Thomas had an idea. “If you’d like to step out for a smoke, sir, I have a bit of time before I’ll need to start on dressing-changes.” He tried to make it sound, for the benefit of any listeners, as though this was a request Courtenay had made before—even though there was no reason he couldn’t smoke in his bed.

Fortunately, Courtenay caught on—or, at least, trusted him enough not to ask what the hell he was on about. “Yes, thanks—if it’s warm enough for me to go in my dressing-gown and slippers.”

“It is, sir,” Thomas said, helping Courtenay into them. “Very fine night. There you are.”

Courtenay took his arm and they walked outside, Thomas managing not to steer him into any walls or furniture. “And the bench is just there if you take one step backwards.” 

Courtenay did so and sat. “This was a good idea—I was starting to go a bit stir-crazy, being in bed all day.”

Thomas lit two cigarettes and handed him one. “Thought you might be,” he said, sitting down next to him on the bench. “Things should be a bit closer to normal tomorrow, now that the new patients are starting to settle in.”

“Yes,” Courtenay said. “Don’t worry; Major Clarkson explained to me that you and Nurse Crawley would be too busy to give me the special attention I’ve gotten used to.” His tone was slightly bitter. “He wanted to make clear that having hysterics won’t get me my way.” 

Thomas scoffed. “Is that what he calls it?” It seemed Courtenay and Nurse Crawley had gotten similar lectures; he wondered if Major Clarkson simply hadn’t gotten around to him yet. “You came very close,” he said. If Thomas had found him even a few minutes later…or if he hadn’t known about the blood groups, or if he hadn’t been able to talk the Major into the blood transfusion….

“I thought I must have.” Courtenay took a long pull on his cigarette; Thomas watched the coal at the end flare brightly. “Blood transfusion’s quite risky, isn’t it?”

“Not if all the testing’s been done in advance,” Thomas said, and explained a bit about the blood grouping scheme at the 47th. “But old Clarkson wouldn’t have agreed to it if he’d thought you had much chance of pulling through without one. He’s cautious, when it comes to new methods.” 

“I suppose I’m very lucky,” Courtenay said, not sounding at all convinced of it. 

“You might be,” Thomas said. “You can’t know, how things are going to turn out. But if you’re…if you’re dead, then there’s no chance of anything coming out right.” He took a deep breath. “When I was wounded, I thought I was going to die, and…I was glad. Just to have it all over with. I didn’t know what I was going to do after the war—I still don’t—and if I’d been killed, I wouldn’t have to figure it out.” 

Next to him, Courtenay shifted his weight. “But now you’re full of the joys of living, I suppose?”

Thomas took a long drag on his cigarette, thinking about the answer. “Not hardly. But none of what’s happened since then has been exactly unbearable, and some of it hasn’t been too bad.” 

“Heavens,” Courtenay said dryly. “You make it sound so enticing.” 

Thomas laughed humorlessly. “Yeah, well.” He flicked away his cigarette-end and lit another. Courtenay’s was nearly done, too. “You want another one of these?”

“Yes, thanks.” Once he had it, he said, “I suppose I think about spending the rest of my life as a dependent in my brother’s house. Blind Uncle Edward, who sits in a chair by the fire and talks about the war. I don’t see how I can stand it.”

“That’s a tough one,” Thomas agreed. “But if it does work out like that—and if you can’t find a way to stand it—you can always top yourself _then_.” That was what he told himself, when he accidentally looked ahead to his own future, and saw himself unable to find work, sleeping rough or—worse yet—crawling back to Carson begging to be allowed to work for his keep. It might not happen, and if it did, there was always one door that wouldn’t be closed to him.

Well, unless he hocked his razor to buy food or something.

Courtenay let out a hollow chuckle. “That’s a way of looking at it,” he said. 

“Maybe,” Thomas said, “even if it works out pretty badly—your brother gets the farm and all that—you could be blind Uncle Edward who spends all his time fishing and riding. You could even hunt, if life’s not worth living without it—you might break your neck, but you’d be no worse off than if you’d died last night.”

Courtenay’s laugh at that was something closer to genuine. “I don’t mind the sound of that,” he said. “Not the neck-breaking part, necessarily,” Thomas was glad to hear him add, “but the rest of it. I’d be the terror of the county.” He sighed. “I’m not sure it would be fair to the rest of the Hunt—I expect they’d feel they had to look out for me.”

Thomas hesitated, then said, “You know, you won’t be the only one.” It was something they’d talked about at the Royal Orthopedic, to the limbless men especially. You couldn’t hide cripples away in a corner by the fire when half the men of their generation were either crippled or dead. Every village and every city street would have its share, they’d said, and presumably every Hunt Club would, as well. “Maybe the only one blind, but I’d bet you anything by the time it’s all over, men from your Hunt will’ve lost arms or legs, or the use of them, or had their lungs gassed, their faces mutilated. And they’ll want to get on with things, too, as best they can. Could be you’ll look out for one another.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Courtenay admitted. “But you’re right—I was imagining everyone else picking up just where they left off, but…well, quite a lot of them are dead, but Meriwether was invalided out, and Gilbert…perhaps Sherston, too, by now—rumor has it he cracked up, but he might have been wounded.” He took a pull from his cigarette, nodding thoughtfully. “I shouldn’t mind so much, poking along in the back with the children and old people, if some of my chums are there, too.”

They finished their cigarettes and went back inside, Courtenay saying that he thought he just might be able to sleep now. Thomas got on with the dressing changes—slow going, because he had one of the new men with him, and had to explain what he was doing—and by the time he made it back into the small ward, Courtenay was asleep.

And the facial wound was dead. Nurse Bellamy’s other two patients were still hanging on, so Thomas and the new bloke—Griffiths, a former artilleryman who’d come back missing an eye—took charge of the laying-out. 

“You holding up all right?” Thomas asked, as they got on with it. 

Griffiths nodded. “Yeah.” Half under his breath, he added, “And to think I was worried this’d be a soft job.”

“This was a bad one, as convoys go,” Thomas said. “Worst one I’ve seen here, as a matter of fact.”

“On account of the Push, I reckon,” said Griffiths.

“Yeah. Here, help me turn him over.” As they did so, Thomas continued, “I’d guess the Base hospitals in France are overrun, and they shipped this lot across the Channel without doing much more than checking they were still breathing. You often get one or two that took a turn for the worse on the journey, but usually, they go through a couple of rounds of triage before they make it this far, and we mostly get ones that have a chance.” Out of this group, they’d probably lose a few more, besides the ones already on death watch, as filthy as most of the wounds had been when the convoy arrived. “If we’re really lucky, they’ve even been tidied up a bit before we get them.”

“Good,” said Griffiths. “That smell—takes you right back to the trenches, doesn’t it?”

After that laying-out, there was another one to do, and then a medication round, and so on until the patients started waking up, and then the day shift started trickling in.

Nurse Crawley was one of the first to arrive, and once Thomas had updated her on Lieutenant Courtenay—he’d slept the rest of the night through—she said, “I think Mama and Papa are going to agree, about the convalescent home.” Thomas let his surprise show, and she added, “Mama wasn’t keen at first, but then Granny said that she forbade it. That’s when Mama started to really consider it.”

Now that, Thomas could believe. 

After reporting in to Sister Crawley, Thomas made his way up the hill to the house. As he walked, he wondered idly whether Lang had been sacked in his absence—Thomas had barely spared a thought for him since finding out Courtenay was being sent away, let alone finding him half-dead. 

Well, either Bates had taken the matter in hand, or he hadn’t—Thomas couldn’t be expected to handle _everything_. 

When Thomas stepped into the house, he heard roars of laughter coming from the servants’ hall—not at all a usual occurrence. Wondering what the hell could be going on, he made his way down the passage, and found William sitting at the table, dressed in the cleanest infantry uniform Thomas had ever seen, saying, “So he says, ‘I think it’s dead, corp!’”, while most of the staff stood around him as if spellbound.

Except for Lang, who sat at the far end of the table, looking down intently at a newspaper. 

“What are you doing here?” Thomas asked.

William jumped to his feet and braced up.

 _Oh, for fuck’s sake_. “As you were.” 

As William sat down again, Daisy explained, “He had a weekend pass from training, and he stopped to see us on his way back.”

To see some of them more than others, Thomas would wager. “How nice.”

Anna added, “He’s getting the train right after breakfast—I’m sure you can manage to be nice for that long.”

“We’ll see,” Thomas said, and circled round the table to take his usual place. 

William, it turned out, had been entertaining them all with amusing anecdotes of training-camp life. The one Thomas had interrupted had been about bayonet drill, and he wasted no time in launching into one about an inspection parade before the camp commander. Out of the corner of his eye, Thomas gave him a once-over, and, when William paused for breath, said, “Speaking of all that, you’re going to want to button your top pocket.” All eyes turned to look at him. “Sometime before you get back,” he added.

Blushing furiously, William buttoned it. 

“Only trying to help,” Thomas lied. 

Before anyone could challenge him on this point, Mrs. Patmore appeared, and told Daisy to “Stop mooning about, and go get the toast!” 

The crowd around William’s chair broke up, and as they took their seats, Bates asked Thomas, “Was that really necessary?”

Thomas shrugged slightly. Honestly, he’d come back from _actually being at war_ and they all looked at him like an insect under a microscope; William came back from _Richmond_ , and they hung on his every word. “I was always very good at inspections.”

Anna and Bates exchanged a look, and apparently decided to let it go. “Have you been down at the hospital all this time?” she asked. “Lady Sybil said something about an emergency.”

Thomas was a little surprise anyone had noticed his absence, especially with William there to fawn over. “Yes. One of the patients needed a blood transfusion, which made for a hectic night. They needed me back early the next day—yesterday—for the convoy coming in the afternoon, and—” He was cut off by Carson and Mrs. Hughes making their entrance, and everyone standing up. As they sat back down again, he continued, “And I ended up just sleeping down there, because it was my blood they used and I was a bit worn out.”

The scrape of chairs died down just as Thomas got to the end of this explanation, and Carson glared at him. “I’m not sure we need to be hearing about _blood_ at the breakfast table. There are _women_ present.”

Anna and Ethel exchanged a wry look, and Thomas it go around the table, from woman to woman—what, precisely, it signified, he didn’t know. When it reached Mrs. Hughes, she said, “I expect we can manage. Used your blood for what?”

With a wary glance at Carson, Thomas said, “A transfusion, for one of the patients. It was the first one Major Clarkson had done, but I’d already been identified as a suitable donor, in France, and that’s the trickiest bit.”

“What did you have to do?” Ethel asked.

“Just sit there and bleed into a tube,” Thomas answered. “It’s not difficult, nor very painful. It just makes you a bit tired.”

Daisy, bringing in the teapot, asked, “Ain’t it dangerous? What if they take too much out of you?”

“Well, that’s what the doctor doing it has to watch out for,” Thomas said. 

“I don’t think I’d dare,” Daisy said. 

“Wouldn’t you do it, to save someone’s life?” Ethel asked. “I think I would.”

Anna added, “If someone was dying, and they asked you, I don’t see how you could say no.”

Carson harrumphed, and Mrs. Hughes said only, “Nor do I,” before shifting the conversation to another topic.

After breakfast was finished, most of the household dispersed—some to their duties, some to see William off. Soon Thomas and Lang were the only ones left. Carson had gone up to serve in the breakfast room, demonstrating that Lang was still in the doghouse, even if he hadn’t been sacked. Thomas went round the table to sit by him. “Holding up all right?” he asked, lighting a cigarette.

Lang waved off his offer of one. “Yes. Mr. Bates told me about your suggestion, but Mr. Carson has agreed to give me another chance. I just need to keep my mind on what I’m doing.”

Easier said than done, but it was Lang’s choice. “All right,” he said. “I wouldn’t like it much, either—going that far down the ladder—but I thought it might be something to consider, if you’re in a tight spot.”

“It was kind of you to think of me,” Lang said. “But I’ll manage. I must.” Lang turned his head toward the door, as voices were raised in farewell, then looked back at Thomas. “That boy,” he said, swallowing hard. “He has no idea what he’s in for.”

“I know,” said Thomas. “I tried to tell him, but I might as well have saved me breath to cool me porridge.” 

“Yes,” Lang said dryly. “Me, as well.”

“If I’d known he was coming, I’d have told you not to bother.” Thomas hadn’t much enjoyed dredging up things better off not thought of, in a futile effort to give William some warning—and he wasn’t shell-shocked. “Thought I suppose there was always a chance he’d believe someone who wasn’t me.”

“At least you were sent home for a real wound,” Lang said morosely. “You might be a….” Thomas watched him give up on finding a word for it that he could say in a respectable house, and he continued, “But you’re not a coward.”

“Nor are you,” Thomas said. “Once he’s been there—if he’s lucky enough to come back—he’ll know better.”

Lang shook his head. “Some come through it all right. You did.”

Thomas hesitated. Well, he’d already said it out loud once, and the world hadn’t ended. “I didn’t much care whether I lived or died.” He could say that much. He couldn’t say _I still don’t_. “So that made it all a lot easier. My mates thought I was fearless, but it was just that the worst thing that could happen to me already had.” 

Lang started to ask, “What—” Thomas hadn’t considered how much _detail_ Bates and whoever else had gone into, explaining to Lang about him, and he wondered if he would have to explain, but Lang cut the question off short and said, “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Thomas said. “The way I see it, everybody’s got a breaking point—someplace where, if you get hit there, you just shatter.” He thought about the Kingston matter, and how Rouse hadn’t cared much about getting F.P., but months earlier, he’d thought it ought to bother Thomas that he’d left a dying man in no-man’s land to bring in one that had a chance. “You might shrug off something that would break the next bloke, and he might shrug off the thing that would break you. And it’s mostly luck, whether you get hit in your own weak spot, or somebody else’s.” 

“I suppose,” Lang said doubtfully. “I couldn’t do what you do—look, every day, at men who have been torn to pieces. And then to come back here and act as though everything were normal.”

“The second part’s not always easy,” Thomas admitted. “The things they care about in this house…but I wouldn’t trade jobs with you for a gold clock. I’d look at any number of gory wounds before I’d wait at table under Mr. Carson with my shoulder the way it is.”

Lang opened his mouth to ask something, but there were voices coming down the passage, which resolved into Bates’s, saying something Thomas couldn’t quite catch, and Anna’s, saying, “—don’t know, but I expect we’ll soon find out.”

“His lordship seems pretty resigned to it,” Bates answered, as they came in. “Thomas, before I forget, his lordship said that he’s sent a note to Cutler, to give you everything you need.”

Cutler was the gamekeeper; it took Thomas a moment to remember what business he might possible have with him. “Right, thanks,” Thomas said, and explained, “One of the patients wants to go fishing. Nurse Crawley and I thought we’d try to arrange it.”

“That was kind of you,” Bates said—a little suspiciously, Thomas thought. 

Anna said quickly, “But the main thing we were wondering about was this business about turning us into a convalescent home. I expect you’ve heard something about it?”

“A bit,” Thomas said. “The idea is that the patients from the hospital will come up here, once they don’t need quite so much care. We’ve been sending them to Farley Hall, but it’s so far away.”

“Lady Sybil said that,” Anna said. “But what difference does it make how far away it is?”

Thomas had to think about that for a moment. The difference, in Courtenay’s case, was that Thomas and Nurse Crawley weren’t at Farley Hall, but he could hardly say that. “It can be disruptive, moving them to a completely new place when they’ve just started to feel better,” he temporized. “If it’s closer, the same staff can work in both places, so it’s less of an adjustment. And,” he added, realizing something else, “the War Office is pressuring us to move patients along faster, to free up beds in the hospital. There’s only so much of that we can do before Farley Hall runs out of places, too. I expect they’ll need another convalescent home in the area no matter what, and being so near the hospital makes Downton the first choice.”

“But how will it work?” Anna asked. “Will we be expected to help look after the patients?”

“I’m not sure,” Thomas admitted. “I expect the War Office will have to send us more orderlies, or VADs, or something, for the skilled nursing duties. As for the rest of it…Nurse Crawley said that her ladyship is discussing it with Major Clarkson later today. Between the lot of us, it likely won’t be long before we find out what they said.”

#

“Naturally,” Mrs. Crawley chirped, “Doctor Clarkson will be in overall charge, but I expect the day-to-day operations would be handled by a Matron.” Her expression left no doubt as to whom she thought that Matron would be.

Turning his attention to Lady Grantham, Clarkson saw that she had had the same understanding, and didn’t like it one bit. “We’ll have to see what the War Office is willing to send us, in the way of personnel,” he said, hoping to, at least, forestall the argument for another time—preferably, a time when the plans for the convalescent home were too far advanced for Lady Grantham to back out. “But I agree it’s not at all likely they’ll be able to supply a medical officer to take charge—nor do we especially need one. The officers being treated there will need some skilled nursing care, but most of their needs will be of the sort that a grand house is accustomed to supplying for its guests.” 

He hoped that Lady Grantham would be mollified by the suggestion that her role as hostess would be equal to Mrs. Crawley’s as Matron, but her lips narrowed. “We’re already making do with fewer servants than we’re used to. I’m not certain how much extra work we can reasonably ask of them.”

Mentally shifting tracks, Clarkson said, “In these cases, the War Office usually provides funds for workers to be hired locally—cooks, laundresses, and so forth. In cases where duties overlap, it may be best for them to work side-by-side with your existing staff, but the exact details can be worked out as we move forward.”

Fortunately, Lady Grantham accepted this explanation, and they moved on to discussing such matters as how many cases the convalescent home might reasonably accommodate—Mrs. Crawley arguing for a somewhat higher number than Clarkson had had in mind—and when the convalescent home might begin operations. 

After another quarter-hour of negotiations, Mrs. Crawley said, “Well, then. I expect Doctor Clarkson has a great deal to discuss with the War Office, and I must get on with supervising the dressing changes.”

She stood up, and Clarkson rose as well, but Lady Grantham only murmured, “Don’t let me keep you.”

Mrs. Crawley missed the significance of this, and sailed out. Clarkson, more observant, circled round the desk to close the door behind her, and waited for Lady Grantham to say what she had lingered to say.

“Doctor Clarkson,” she said, her voice very level, “I do want to help the war effort.” Clarkson half-expected that the next thing she’d say would be something like, _but not in this way_. What she actually said was something of a relief. “But we will need to be sure that whomever is selected as Matron—or whatever it is—understands that Downton is our home, and that it is our choice to open it to the wounded officers.”

Clarkson had spent enough time dealing with the upper classes to grasp what she wasn’t saying—that she didn’t want Mrs. Crawley taking charge of her house. “I quite agree,” he said. “Arranging things so that everyone is comfortable—the patients and the family, the convalescent home staff and the servants—is a challenging and delicate task.”

“I couldn’t have put it better myself,” Lady Grantham said. “That’s precisely what we want—for everyone to be comfortable.”

“The difficulty is that hospital Matrons are in short supply and high demand.” That was, after all, why he had to put up with Mrs. Crawley himself. “It’s possible that the War Office might allocate us one, but we certainly cannot hope to receive a selection of candidates from which to choose. And the typical hospital Matron is quite accustomed to having her own way.” In other words, whomever the War Office sent could easily be even worse than Mrs. Crawley. Clarkson hoped that Lady Grantham would be persuaded to opt for the devil she knew. 

“I see,” Lady Grantham said. “But I’m not sure how we can move forward without the right person in the role.”

In other words, Mrs. Crawley as Matron was a deal-breaker. Clarkson saw his plans for the convalescent home going up in smoke, unless he could come up with a solution. He briefly considered whether Nurse Whibley could possibly manage—it wasn’t as though they’d be doing complicated treatments there. But no, Mrs. Crawley and Lady Sybil would both resist that proposal—and with good reason. Could Lady Sybil—no, definitely not; she was far too inexperienced. 

Although perhaps that was the solution Lady Grantham was angling for? Testing the waters, he said, “It would have to be someone with substantial experience, both in nursing and in supervising others.” 

“Of course,” said Lady Grantham. 

Clarkson waited a long moment for a _but_ or an _although_ , but when none came, he concluded that she was not picturing her youngest daughter as Matron of the convalescent home. 

With an inward sigh, Clarkson realized that the solution was—as Mrs. Crawley had said yesterday, of the choice of convalescent home site—staring him right in the face. Someone with experience in ward-work and supervision. Up for a challenging yet delicate job. Able to train the raft of new personnel they’d be getting—and knowing something of the routines of a great house wouldn’t hurt, either.

#

 _“Wardmaster_?” Thomas said, picking his jaw up off the floor. When Nurse Crawley had told him that Major Clarkson wanted to see him immediately—he’d just arrived at the hospital, and had been on his way to tell Lieutenant Courtenay that the fishing expedition was all arranged, if he felt up to it—Thomas’s first thought was that he must be in some sort of trouble. Halfway to the Major’s office, it had occurred to him that he might be about to be officially told of the convalescent home plan. 

“Yes,” said Major Clarkson. “You’ll have to be made up to sergeant, of course, but I don’t foresee any difficulty with that.” 

“Yes, sir,” Thomas said automatically. _Wardmaster. Fuck me blind_. “What about my duties here?” Sister Crawley would be Matron, of course; he didn’t see how the hospital could manage without both of them. 

“You’d concentrate on the convalescent home,” Major Clarkson said. “The Acting Ward Sister would resume the day-to-day supervision of the orderlies. With the extra training you’ve given Franklin, Booth, and Henson, they, and Nurse Bellamy, should be able to handle the most complicated nursing duties. We’ll have to train at least one of them to assist in theater, but that’s not a serious obstacle.”

Thomas barely heard anything after the part about Sister Crawley. She was going to _murder_ him. “Sir,” he said. “Speaking of Sister Crawley, I’d have thought she’d be the one to be in charge of things at Downton.”

“So does she,” Major Clarkson said. “But when Lady Grantham and I discussed the special requirements of the position, we agreed that you were the best choice. For one thing, the person in charge will need to coordinate the hospital routines with the household ones, giving equal importance to both.”

In other words, her ladyship didn’t want Sister Crawley running roughshod over the house. “I understand, sir.” He hesitated. “I have the impression that Sister Crawley feels strongly about the project.” _What are we going to do to stop her murdering me?_

“I have that impression as well,” said Major Clarkson. “I hope she’ll understand that we need her here.”

So he was aware of the problem, but had no ideas other than hoping for the best. 

Fortunately, Thomas did. “As it happens, sir, I had a thought, earlier today, about something that might suit the Ward Sister’s talents, if she had enough time to take it on.” He hadn’t realized when he’d thought it up that it would solve _two_ problems at once, but it seemed an auspicious start for his new role as Wardmaster—if he could make it work.

Major Clarkson looked interested. “What’s that?”

“Now that we’ve seen how useful it can be to have a blood donor on hand, I wondered if it wouldn’t be useful to identify some more, here in the village,” Thomas explained. “I admit, I have no idea how the testing works, on the technical side, but surely the first steps would be to educate the public about how transfusion can save lives, and persuade them to be tested. That part seems right up the Ward Sister’s alley, if you don’t mind my saying.”

“Indeed,” said Major Clarkson, sitting back in his chair. “But do you suppose enough people would step forward, to make it worthwhile? We’d have to test a great many, to get a sufficient pool of potential donors.”

“Well, sir, the reason I thought of it was that we were talking about it in the servants’ hall—they wondered why they didn’t see me yesterday, and I knew I oughtn’t say anything about the particular case. A few spoke of how they’d be willing to do it, to save someone’s life. Particularly the women.”

“Hm,” Major Clarkson said, frowning. 

“I suppose it’s a way they can contribute, with all the men laying their lives on the line,” Thomas offered. “So that’s when I started to think about it, and I didn’t really think it was my place to suggest, but if the Ward Sister is keen to take on even more responsibility….” 

“When isn’t she?” Major Clarkson asked, rhetorically. “It’s an interesting idea, Barrow.”

“Thank you, sir.” Encouraged, he went on, “All the committee work the Ward Sister does would give her the opportunity to present the idea to various groups, drum up support. It calls for someone with a bit of standing in the community.” Put it to her that way, and she couldn’t possibly suggest it would be better for her to run the convalescent home, and Thomas the blood-grouping scheme. 

“I’d have to find out more about the technical side, as well,” the Major said. “But it does seem worth looking into. Ah—let’s not say anything to the Ward Sister just yet.”

About this _or_ the other thing, Thomas hoped. “Yes, sir.”

They went on to talk more about the convalescent home plans. Fortunately, the next few steps all involved arranging things with the War Office, and so were Major Clarkson’s responsibility, which would give Thomas a bit of time to get his head round his side of things. 

When the meeting finished, he had just a few minutes to stop by and speak to Lieutenant Courtenay before his duty shift began. He found Courtenay sitting outside with Nurse Crawley. Thomas hesitated to approach them—it had occurred to him that Courtenay could be a viable alternative to whatever “unsuitable” person she had previously fancied herself in love with—but she waved him over, saying to Courtenay, “Here’s Corporal Barrow now.”

“Sir, Nurse,” he greeted them. Courtenay didn’t look too bad, he thought—not quite so pale, and sitting up and taking an interest in things. The walking cane was propped up next to him, against the bench the two of them were sitting on. 

“I hope what Doctor Clarkson wanted wasn’t anything too dire,” Nurse Crawley said. 

“No,” Thomas said. “He wanted talk about the convalescent home plans.” 

“Oh, good,” she said. “Cousin Isobel filled me in earlier—it really does look as though it’s going to come off.” To Courtenay, she added, brightly “So something positive has already come of all this. The first of many things, I’m sure.”

Thomas went to exchange a wry look with Courtenay, but of course he couldn’t see it. “Speaking of things to look forward to, everything’s arranged for fishing on Thursday, if you feel up to it.” He’d told the gamekeeper that the patient in question had had a minor relapse, and might have to postpone, but he hoped Courtenay would still want to go—by the time Thomas’s next afternoon off came round, there was no telling whether he’d be too busy to take it. 

“Oh, you must go,” Nurse Crawley said. “I’m sure it’s the best thing for you, being out in the open air and everything.”

“Well, if I must,” Courtenay said, with a mock sigh.

Thomas was heartened to see a faint smile on his face—but the question was, was he pleased by Nurse Crawley’s solicitude, or the prospect of spending time with Thomas?

#

“This gentleman Thomas is going fishing with,” Mr. Bates said, as they worked side-by-side in the boot room. “Is he…that is, is it…?”

“I’m not sure,” Anna said. She had wondered, too. “Lady Sybil is fond of him too.” She thought of the letter she’d seen, back before Thomas had gone to war, from the Duke of Crowborough. 

“But Lady Sybil isn’t going with them?”

“No, she’s on duty at the hospital.” Anna buffed the toe of a walking shoe. “I’m sure he’ll be careful.”

“I hope so,” Mr. Bates said. “I was glad to find out it wasn’t like that with him and Henry—between the Army and Mr. Carson, I’d say the Army’s more likely to look the other way.”

Privately, Anna agreed. “I don’t know why Mr. Carson can’t just accept it, like the rest of us have.”

“Well, he doesn’t like anything irregular,” Mr. Bates pointed out. “But it isn’t as though Thomas is particularly obvious—apart from the matter with Mr. Fitzroy, at least. I doubt I’d have known, if Mr. Carson hadn’t tipped me off when I first came to the house.”

Anna frowned. “I’m surprised he’d speak of it.”

“He didn’t come right out and say it,” Mr. Bates explained. “It was something about reporting it to him, if Thomas tried anything.” 

That seemed more in keeping with Mr. Carson’s character, but even so, Anna wondered why he’d chosen to face facts even that much, when he could have simply pretended not to notice.

#

“So we’ve got a couple of choices,” Thomas said, as he and Lieutenant Courtenay walked up the drive toward the gamekeeper’s lodge. They were walking arm-in-arm, which Thomas felt a bit self-conscious about, though anyone who looked closely would surely see that it was only because Courtenay was blind. “The best fishing is in the stream, and the gamekeeper told me about a spot that’s fairly open, and not too difficult to get to, but there are a couple of tricky bits on the way there, and some trees and things to get the lines tangled in.” It was, in fact, the spot they used when the fishing party included ladies, rather than one the gamekeeper would recommend for serious anglers, but Thomas didn’t think it was necessary to mention that. “Or there’s the ornamental lake, which is rumored to have fish in it somewhere. There’s a graveled path the whole way there, and we can go out on a row-boat and just drop the lines in.” 

“Hm,” Courtenay said. “I think I’d rather try the stream—I’ve never been much for messin’ about in boats, and a stream is what we have at home. So if the point is to find out whether I’ll be able to fish at home…if you don’t mind, of course.”

“Yes, sir,” Thomas said. “I wasn’t all that keen on rowing the boat, to be honest. Never done it before.”

“Definitely the stream, then,” Courtenay said. “It’s a bit too cold for a swim.”

They stopped at the gamekeeper’s lodge to collect the fishing gear—Thomas had been by earlier, for a quick lesson in stringing hooks and so forth—and set off into the grounds. As they walked, Thomas described the sights, to the best of his ability. “Up here’s one of the follies,” he said. “Supposed to look like an ancient Greek ruin. Or Roman. Which one has the arches?”

“Roman, I think,” Courtenay said. “The Greeks had columns, and triangles.” 

“Well, it’s got columns, too,” Thomas said doubtfully. 

“They might’ve both done columns,” Courtenay said. “I don’t remember.”

Not particularly promising—it seemed to Thomas that a queer who’d been to Oxford would probably know a fair bit about the ancient Greeks. “Well, whichever it is, it’s up ahead on the left. Some vines growing around the columns, with pink flowers on. I’m not sure if those are supposed to be there. The gardener’s an older chap, so he’s still around, but all his assistants have been called up….”

They chatted as they went across the formal garden and through the Yew Walk, but after that came a field and a copse, which required all of Thomas’s and Courtenay’s attention to keep him from tripping over hummocks and tree roots and things. 

At last, they reached the stream-bank, an open, grassy spot, with a few wildflowers blooming. Noticing that Courtenay looked a little peaked, Thomas said, “I’m a bit out of condition for field marches—how about we sit and have a smoke, before we start the fishing?”

Courtenay agreed, and Thomas selected a good spot for them to sit down on. Hope still springing eternal, he lit both cigarettes and passed one to Courtenay. 

If the gesture meant anything to him, he didn’t let on. “Thanks,” he said, stretching his legs out in front of him. “Listen to that.”

Thomas listened. He didn’t hear anything in particular. “The…stream?” he hazarded.

“Yes,” Courtenay said. “The stream, and the birds, and the _no bloody guns_.” 

Oh, right. Back in England for the better part of a year, Thomas had stopped noticing the silence of the guns. “They had me at a Base hospital on the Channel for a while, after I got my wound,” he said. “It wasn’t until I went for a walk one day, that I realized what I’d been hearing the whole time was the ocean, and not the guns.”

“Sounds about right,” Courtenay said. “The things we got used to, over there….”

Thomas nodded soberly, then said, “Yeah,” when he remembered Courtenay couldn’t see him. 

They finished their cigarettes, and went to stand on the edge of the stream. Thomas had naively thought that they’d begin by casting fishing lines into the water, but it turned out that the first step was what Courtenay called “reading the stream,” which meant examining it with an eye to where fish were most likely to choose to be—shaded areas, deeper spots, and so on. The shady places weren’t too hard for Thomas to find, but since he’d never before given moment’s thought to how to tell which part of a stream was deep, and for Courtenay, the process was so automatic as to require little or no conscious thought, it took them a while to get it worked out. 

By that time, Thomas would not have minded another cigarette, but Courtenay was keen to get started, so Thomas moved on to baiting the hooks—Cutler, the gamekeeper, had supplied him with a tin full of worms—and discussing with Courtenay where he ought to stand to cast his line. 

The difficulty there was that the same trees and brush that produced the shade that fish apparently liked, also provided obstacles for the line to get caught in. Finally, they settled on a clear stretch of bank that would allow Courtenay to—in theory, at least—drop his line into a section shaded by a tree on the opposite bank. 

Courtenay cast the line, and it landed in the water with a satisfying _plunk—_ right in the shallow, sunlit middle of the stream. “Where did I put it?” he asked.

Thomas considered whether to lie to him or not. 

Courtenay sighed and started reeling in the line. “This won’t work if I can’t trust you to tell me what I can’t see,” he said angrily.

“Yes, sir,” Thomas said quickly. “Of course. Ah, you were about ten or fifteen feet short, and if the spot we talked about was at twelve o’clock, you were at about half-past one.”

“Thank you,” said Courtenay, his voice still sharp. As he finished reeling in the line, he said, “I’m sorry; I shouldn’t’ve snapped at you.”

“It’s all right,” Thomas said, because he had to. “Would you like to try again?”

“Yes—have I still got the bait on the hook?”

Thomas checked. “Yes.” 

“And you’re standing well over to my left? The last thing we need is for you to catch a fishing hook in the eye.”

“That would be unfortunate,” Thomas admitted, taking another step to Courtenay’s left. “I believe I’m well clear.”

Courtenay cast again, this time overshooting the mark, and catching the hook in a bush at about ten o’clock. Thomas wondered if he was going to have to wade across to untangle it, but Courtenay managed to pull it free, though he lost the worm in the process. 

On the third try, he got it more-or-less in the place he wanted—the line had gone in right at the edge of the shaded spot, but upstream. “That’s all right, then,” Courtenay said, though he was still reeling the line in. “The current will carry the bait downstream a bit.”

“Then why are you reeling it in?” Thomas asked, adding a belated, “Sir.”

“Taking up the slack in the line,” Courtenay explained, turning his head toward Thomas. “Haven’t you fished before?”

“No,” Thomas said. He supposed working-class blokes might fish in the countryside, but they certainly didn’t in Sheffield. 

“No wonder it’s like the blind leading the blind here,” he said. “Well, the next bit is to watch the cork. Tell me when it gets out of the shady place, or close to anything that might tangle the line.”

“I expect I can manage that,” Thomas said, and lit a cigarette. 

In due course, the cork drifted into the sun, and Courtenay reeled in the line and cast again. This time, it took him only two tries to get it into the spot he’d selected—or near enough to be getting on with—and what’s more, he got a bite, although Courtenay pronounced the fish too small to keep and instructed Thomas to put it back in the water.

He elected to try a more challenging spot next, and this time _did_ get the line hopelessly entangled in a tree—though fortunately, one on this side of the stream. “I’ll pull it down as far as I can, and you cut it off,” Courtenay instructed. “Er—I hope the gamekeeper gave you some extra hooks and corks.”

He had, although Thomas had forgotten the finer points of what he’d explained about how to attach them. Thomas managed to get them attached in a way that seemed as though it wouldn’t fall off, at least, even if it didn’t look quite right. 

After a couple more tries, Courtenay got his line into the selected spot, and took up a resting stance on the bank. They talked a bit about Courtenay’s home, and the horse he’d had before the war—it had been a wrench, Thomas gathered, when the government requisitioned it—and then the hospital and the people there. “D’you happen to know what made Nurse Crawley decided to take up nursing? It isn’t exactly what one would expect, of an earl’s daughter.”

Ignoring the slight sinking in his stomach, Thomas said, “I was still in France when she decided to start, but I gather she wanted to do something important, for the war effort. I believe it was Sister Crawley who suggested nursing in particular.”

“Ah,” said Courtenay, reeling in a bit of slack on his line. “I’ve heard of girls taking it up after a fiancé’s been killed.”

So it was Nurse Crawley—Lady Sybil—that he wanted. Of course it was. “I don’t think it was like that, in her case. She came out just before the war, and I never heard anything about an understanding, much less a formal engagement.”

“I just wondered,” Courtenay added quickly. 

“She’s a very diligent nurse,” Thomas said, because he had to say something. 

A while later, after catching a fish big enough to keep, Courtenay proclaimed that his arms were getting sore, and persuaded Thomas to have a go at fishing. “It is your day off,” he said. “It’s hardly fair for me to have all the fun.”

Thomas was not entirely sure how making an idiot of himself with a fishing rod would add to the fun of the occasion, but he could hardly say so, especially since he’d been taking some pains to downplay Courtenay’s mistakes. 

Fishing, it turned out, was a great deal more difficult than it looked. On his first try, he didn’t swing the rod nearly hard enough, and the line barely cleared the bank they were standing on. The next, he over-corrected, and “caught” a section of bank on the opposite side. On his third attempt, he caught the bush to his left, and on the fourth, one to his right. “I’m not sure I’m cut out for this,” he said, as he re-baited the hook. 

“You’re not, ah, doing it badly to make me feel better?” Courtenay asked.

“No,” Thomas said grimly. 

His fifth cast landed, with another satisfying _plunk_ , in the middle of the stream—not far off from where Courtenay’s first, unsatisfactory one had ended up, if Thomas remembered correctly. 

“That sounded better,” Courtenay said encouragingly.

“Well, it’s in the _water_ ,” Thomas said. “That might be the best I’m going to do.”

“It’s my fault,” Courtenay said. “I’d be able to tell you what to do differently, if I could just see what you were doing.” 

Bloody hell—he could hardly give up _now_ , could he? “We’ll figure it out,” he said, determinedly cheerful, and began reeling in the line. “I’m not bad at cricket—how much harder can this be?”

“Oh,” said Courtenay, in a tone of one to whom all has been revealed. “Are you trying to _bowl_ it?”

Courtenay’s tone made clear he shouldn’t have been, and Thomas lied, “No,” reflexively. Recalling what Courtenay had said about needing to trust him forced him to correct himself. “Well, maybe. Sort of.”

After another explanation of casting technique, this one focused on the differences between casting a fishing line and bowling a cricket ball, Thomas found himself putting the line somewhere near to where he wanted it, on close to half of his attempts. 

For another hour or so, they took turns fishing. The only one Thomas caught was too small to keep—though he was privately proud of himself for managing it at all—but Courtenay got another “keeper,” as he put it. “I don’t know about you,” he said, “but I’m getting hungry.”

“Oh,” Thomas said flatly. Now that he thought about, every previous time he’d been present while fishing was taking place, there had been a meal involved. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have thought about bringing a picnic tea, but I didn’t.”

“Don’t be silly,” Courtenay said. “We’ve got our tea right here.” He lifted the basket they’d put the fish into. “We just need to find some wood.”

Thomas was not quite ignorant enough of country sports to miss his meaning. “I should probably mention I’ve never cleaned a fish before, either. Nor cooked anything over an open fire.”

“That’s all right,” Courtenay said. “My brother and I always used to cook and eat our catch when we were boys—it’s not difficult.”

Thomas would have begged to differ, once they got started gutting the fish, but was too busy trying to stop Courtenay from taking the knife, without actually _saying_ that Major Clarkson would murder him if he brought Courtenay back with fewer fingers than he’d started out with. 

But lashing the fish to green twigs was something Courtenay could do by feel, and starting a campfire was similar enough in principle to lighting a fireplace that Thomas managed that part of it without too much trouble. 

As they worked, Courtenay talked about those childhood fishing expeditions with his brother. “We’d pretend that we were Red Indians, or else Robin Hood and his Merry Men. Living off the land, you know. But we’d always end up arguing over whether Robin Hood fished or not—I thought he must have done, even though the stories don’t mention it—so if we felt like keeping the peace, we played Indians. My Indian name was Walks in the Forest Without a Sound. Jack was always changing his, trying to sound fierce. Takes-Many-Scalps, and rubbish like that.”

Thomas tried to remember what games he and Alice and Jamie had played. They must have played _something_ , but he couldn’t remember anything in particular. “I used to pretend my real father was an Italian Count,” he said, skipping over the fact that he’d been much too old for childish games when he’d pretended that. 

“Well, now I’m going to imagine that you look Italian,” Courtenay said. “Do you?”

“Not really,” Thomas said. “I have dark hair.” He got up to turn the fish on the improvised spits. “How do you tell if these are done?”

“Mostly you don’t,” Courtenay answered. “Eating them burnt or half-raw is part of the fun.”

Of the two, Thomas decided he would prefer burnt. “Let’s give them a few more minutes.” 

Courtenay settled down on his elbow. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Only you must tell me the truth.”

“Now you’re worrying me,” Thomas said—only half joking, even though the question couldn’t possibly be _is it true you’re a poof?_

“Just how dreadful _do_ I look?”

That wasn’t what Thomas had been expecting at all. He hesitated, trying to sort out how a normal man would answer a question like that. Certainly not _you look lovely_ , or _better than you have any right to_.

He hesitated too long. “Bad enough to make women faint and children cry, then. Right.” Courtenay’s voice was brittle.

“No,” Thomas said quickly. “You don’t look bad at all, really. There’s a bit of scarring around your eyes, but nothing too terrible. It’s faded a lot since the bandages came off. By the time it’s finished, you’ll have to look closely to see it. Er.” Well, it wouldn’t be _Courtenay_ looking closely, but Thomas didn’t suppose he had to clarify that.

“What about my eyes themselves?”

“They’re fine.” Lovely, actually—a soft grey that reminded Thomas of kittens. 

“Really? There was this blind man in our village. His eyes were sort of yellowish-white, like grubs. They’re not like that?”

“No,” Thomas said. “Nothing like that.”

“You’re not having me on?” Courtenay asked, warily.

“I’m not. Ask anyone—ask Nurse Crawley.” Thomas congratulated himself on managing to keep any hint of bitterness from his tone. 

“I did,” Courtenay admitted. “But I thought she might be trying to spare my feelings.”

“Well, I’d never do that.” A touch of bitterness might have crept out, then. 

“No,” said Courtenay. “I don’t suppose you would. That’s what I like about you. Nurse Crawley’s lovely—I mean, everyone at the hospital’s been very kind. But they’re all so _cheerful_. As though being blind for the rest of my life is like…having it rain when I planned a picnic. You’re not afraid to admit that it’s…that nothing’s ever going to be the same. That’s the only reason I can even _try_ to believe you, when you say it might not be as bad as I think.” 

Thomas knew it was small and petty of him to be warmed by hearing himself compared to Lady Sybil and come out on top—even if only in one way. But he _was_ warmed by it. “I’m not sure anyone ever said they like me for my cynicism before.” 

“Really? It’s one of your best—are the fish burning?”

They were. Thomas quickly pulled them off the fire. “It’s just the tail ends that are burnt,” he reported. “The rest is just…a bit overdone.”

They ate the burning-hot fish with their fingers, since they’d brought no cutlery. The tail ends were burnt, the head ends leathery, but there were a couple of bites in the middle—the thickest part—that were just about perfect. It was, Thomas thought, a better result than they had any right to expect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content notes:   
> 1) This chapter covers the same time-period as Lieutenant Courtenay’s canon suicide. In talking to him about it, Thomas discloses his own suicidal ideation and shares his own coping strategies, which are more in the line of psychological first-aid than a comprehensive approach to dealing with the issue. 
> 
> 2) Racial attitudes. Courtenay shares a childhood memory where he and his brother pretended to be indigenous Americans, only he calls them “Red Indians” (which was polite terminology at the time--or at least, was thought by white people to be polite). It is evident that their make-believe was based on stereotypical depictions of indigenous American groups. 
> 
> Historical note: Of the chemical weapons used in the Great War, it’s difficult to match one to Lieutenant Courtenay’s symptoms. Many forms of tear gas were used from 1915 onwards, but these caused only temporary blindness. Chlorine and phosgene gases could also cause temporary blindness, but would also have noticeable—and often fatal—effects on the respiratory system. The one most likely to cause permanent blindness was mustard gas, but it was not used until July of 1917 (the episode is said to take place in April of that year) and would also cause severe and unsightly chemical burns to the skin. In short, it’s really difficult to imagine how Edward could have been permanently blinded by gas and still look and sound like a Disney prince. 
> 
> Given these difficulties (and the fact that I already moved the sinking of the hospital ship Anglia forward by several months) I elected to suppose that mustard gas was used earlier in the Downton universe than in our own, and to join Julian Fellowes in hand-waving the rest of it.


	25. Chapter 20: April-May, 1917

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Wardmaster of the convalescent home, Thomas's first task is to get the place up and running.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter covers the approximate time-period of the first half of episode 2x03, and includes some dialogue from that episode. 
> 
> Content note: Thomas gets some bad news from the 47th. Skip to the endnote if you want to know what it is.

Four rows of eight beds each, Thomas calculated, and they could get 32 in here—better make it 31; they’d have to leave a space empty in front of the fireplace, and another by the pocket doors, unless they just kept them closed, so say an even 30….

“Where are they going to _eat_?” her ladyship asked suddenly. 

Thomas had had several meetings with her ladyship by now—always conducted while walking through the house, to avoid the minefield of both of them sitting down in the same room—and was used to the way she jumped from one topic to the next with no regard for order. 

Used to it, but he didn’t like it. 

Before he could answer, Sister Crawley said, “I thought those who are most recovered could share the dining room—”

Sister Crawley horning in on these meetings—despite having no official role in the convalescent home—was another thing he was used to. He should have realized that murderous rage wouldn’t be her reaction to being shunted off to the side—in favor of _him_ , of all people. No, she simply chose not to accept that it had happened. 

“I’m afraid there wouldn’t be room,” Thomas said smoothly. He’d learned that, in this particular circumstance, interrupting Sister Crawley was a lesser sin than letting her voice her more outrageous ideas unopposed. “And it would smack of favoritism, if some patients dined as the family’s guests, and not others. Tables in the front hall, I thought, my lady. The ones we use for the hunt breakfast, if you don’t mind lending them to the cause.”

“Won’t they be in the way?” her ladyship asked.

“A bit, but we’ll move them back against the walls between meals.” At least, Thomas hoped she wouldn’t insist on them being moved out of the hall altogether. “Not ideal, but there is a war on, my lady.”

“Quite right,” she said. “Very well.”

Thomas turned to the correct page on the clipboard he was carrying and made a note. “I also wondered how you’d feel about the nurses having their luncheon and tea in the breakfast room—they’ll have breakfast at their billets, so you’d still have it to yourselves in the morning.”

Her ladyship frowned. “I don’t suppose it’s really proper for them to eat with the men.”

Thomas had learned by now that when she said “the men,” she meant the officers—not the orderlies, who would be the only ones in the establishment who were “men” in the Army sense. “Not precisely, my lady, and we’ve found that if the nurses take their meal breaks in sight of the patients, they’re likely to be called away for matters that could have waited until they’d finished.” Another thing he had learned was that her ladyship was fairly sensitive to the convenience of the nurses—understandably, since Lady Sybil was one of them. 

“Then I suppose that’s the best solution,” her ladyship said. “They won’t need to dine here?”

“They’ll mostly dine at their billets—the only time they’d be here at the dinner hour is if one were working a longer than usual shift. We don’t anticipate that happening often, and on the occasions it does, I expect we’ll be able to set her up with a tray somewhere.” In fact, Thomas suspected that since the young lady in question would be a friend of Nurse Crawley’s—Nurse Crawley was friendly with everyone—she’d advocate inviting her to dine with the family. But Nurse Crawley could face that fence on her own, when the time came.

“It seems as though you’ve thought of everything,” her ladyship said. 

“Not quite, my lady,” he admitted. “There’s also the question of where the orderlies will eat their lunches and teas.”

“ _Not_ with the nurses,” her ladyship said firmly.

“No, my lady. Nor with the officers. The best I’ve come up with so far is a second seating in the servants’ hall—I don’t think there’d be enough space for them to eat with the household staff.” Not to mention Carson would blow his stack. “But that would mean depriving everyone else of the use of the servants’ hall for a considerable period every day.”

“What about a second seating in the breakfast room?” Sister Crawley proposed. “That way, the nurses will be on duty while the orderlies have their breaks, and vice-versa.”

And now Thomas was reminded of why her ladyship didn’t put her foot down about Sister Crawley’s butting in—she did have quite a few good ideas, mixed in with the outrageous ones. It wasn’t _entirely_ right, having enlisted men eat in a room the family used—Carson would have kittens—but it was better than anything Thomas had come up with. He glanced at her ladyship, to see how she was taking the idea, and ventured, “That seems as though it might be a solution.”

“Would it create more work for Mrs. Patmore?” her ladyship wondered. With only one modern kitchen to work in, one of the first thing they had decided was that the assistant cooks paid for by the War Office would work under Mrs. Patmore’s direct supervision. 

“I’ll ask her, my lady, but I believe that for the hospital meals, she’ll be making things that can easily be held over for an hour or so.” Thomas made a note of it on his clipboard. “And if we have the men—the orderlies—at the second seating, all we’ll need to do between seatings is clear away the dishes that have been used. They won’t mind—or even notice—if things aren’t perfectly tidy.” 

At last, her ladyship agreed to this plan, and they went back to the task at hand—determining exactly how many patients they would be able to accommodate. As Thomas frequently reminded her ladyship, that number had to be supplied to the War Office before they would allocate personnel and equipment. 

So far, they had determined the fate of most of the ground floor rooms, and Thomas had high hopes of moving on to the guest bedrooms sometime this century. Unfortunately, with Mrs. Crawley involved, nothing was ever really settled—unless it had been settled to her liking. They had decided over an hour ago that the family would keep the small library, and the large library would become a patient dayroom, but Mrs. Crawley was now saying, “With the small library and the billiard room as recreation areas, we the large library could easily accommodate another forty patients.” 

“We must have somewhere to sit,” her ladyship said—and not for the first time. 

“You’ll have the dining room,” Sister Crawley said. “Oh—and what about the morning room? I don’t think we’ve put any patients in there.”

“Haven’t we?” her ladyship asked. “Then what do you need the small library for?”

Sister Crawley and Lady Grantham might disagree vociferously about how much space it was reasonable for the family to set aside for their own use, but one thing they had in common was a tendency to forget that the family’s private quarters, wards, and common areas for the patients were _not_ the only three categories they needed to allocate. Thomas cleared his throat. “Currently, my lady, ma’am, we have the morning room down as linen room, pharmacy store, Wardmaster’s office, and orderlies’ room.” The latter two of those were particular points of contention; Thomas was rapidly running out of tactful ways to get across that soldiers denied a place to keep the kettle were inclined to mutiny, and that if he and Carson attempted to share the desk in the butler’s pantry, there would be murder done within a week. 

Beyond that, they had already chosen the morning room for those purposes because it was so uncomfortable—cold in winter and hot in summer—that the family hadn’t used it in half a century. 

Fortunately, the two ladies did not demand a recital of these points. Instead, her ladyship said, “Speaking of linen, how will we make sure that the household things aren’t confused with the hospital things? If they’re all being handled in our laundry?”

God, Thomas hoped she didn’t go back on that point; Thomas had already spent an hour this week sucking up to the head laundress, telling her how in France it had been a man’s day’s work making sure they got back the things they sent out, and thank goodness they could rely on her to be honest. “Hospital things will all be stamped RAMC, my lady,” he said. 

She nattered on for a while about how easily laundry marks could be missed; when she finally ran out of things to say on the subject, Thomas said, “I expect Mrs. Coulter will understand if I explain the importance of folding the hospital things so that the stamps are visible. Then the person responsible for the hospital linen-cupboard can check for the stamps when putting the things away.” 

About the time that her ladyship got around to accepting that these precautions would be adequate, Sister Crawley suddenly noticed the time. “Heavens!” she said. “If I don’t run, I’ll be late for the Women’s Institute—I’m speaking to them about the blood grouping scheme, you know. We’ll have to finish this another time.”

“Have Branson take you in the car, if that helps,” her ladyship said. 

Something about it—the way she addressed Sister Crawley’s remark about being late, while ignoring the rest of it—caught Thomas’s attention, and he began to wonder, in the back of his mind, if her ladyship just might have been _stalling on purpose_ to get rid of her. Back when she’d arrived—whole geological ages ago—Sister Crawley _had_ made quite a thing about her engagement with the Women’s Institute. 

Looking at Lady Grantham with a new respect, Thomas followed her up the stairs, firmly resisting the impulse to look behind him to see if Carson had popped into view while he wasn’t watching. Whether the hospital staff would use the front stairs was a question they hadn’t tackled yet—but in any case, as Wardmaster, he’d go where he damned well pleased. 

Thomas only had a short time to enjoy not having to play the referee between her ladyship and Sister Crawley. They quickly settled the matter of the bachelor corridor—the likelihood of bachelor guests being slim, all of the rooms there could be used for patients—and moved on to the main guest corridor, where they had tentatively planned to set aside a few rooms for any guests the family might invite. 

When they got there, her ladyship said, “Now that I’ve thought about it, I’m not sure we can have _any_ patients here. The girls must be free to invite their friends, and we can’t possibly have young ladies mixed in with the men.” 

Thomas spared a half a moment to wish Sister Crawley were still here. She’d smack that down hard, allowing Thomas to step in and smooth things over. But since she wasn’t, he had to be the one to object. “Yes, my lady, that wouldn’t be suitable at all,” he began. To buy himself another half a moment to think about what they could do instead, he continued, “But it is a great deal of usable space we’d be giving up for the convalescent home. With these rooms being larger, we could fit four gentlemen in most of them. Perhaps six, in the Armada bedroom.” The bachelor corridor rooms would only hold two or three, at most. One solution would be to take the bachelor corridor _off_ the ward list, and use these instead—but her ladyship would surely point out that the bachelor corridor rooms were too small for any married couples they might invite. 

“You might think about how _many_ young ladies you’d be likely to invite at any one time. There are the two additional bedrooms on the family corridor—which we wouldn’t think of intruding upon for the convalescent home,” he added smoothly. “And for a young lady guest who happens to be a particular friend, the young ladies’ dressing room might be pressed into service.” He knew better than to suggest that the Crawley sisters double up—either with one another or with the hypothetical guests—but surely they could manage without a dressing room for a weekend here and there. 

Her ladyship looked thoughtful. “With all these men in the house, I expect the young ladies’ mothers _would_ be more comfortable if they slept near the family.”

After a bit more hemming and hawing, she agreed, and Thomas, in turn, agreed to set aside four rooms on the guest corridor for family guests—though he knew Sister Crawley would have argued that two were more than enough, and she’d probably have been right. 

But at least it was done. Thomas added up the numbers, her ladyship announced herself satisfied with the total, and he escaped downstairs—the _back_ stairs, this time—for a much-needed cup of tea and a cigarette. 

Miss O’Brien being nowhere in evidence—another question they hadn’t tackled yet was whether or not Thomas now outranked her—he had Daisy bring him a cup of tea in the servants’ hall, and lit his cigarette there, sighing as he did so. 

“That bad?” Anna asked. She was doing some mending or something. 

“It’ll be more fun once the new staff arrive,” he said. “I knew sergeanting involved a certain amount of sucking up to those above you, but there’s supposed to be a lot of them sucking up to me, too.” Not that it _would_ turn out that way. When the new men arrived, he’d end up standing between them and Carson. 

“Don’t you get to boss them around down at the hospital?” Thomas was still working there, when he wasn’t dealing with convalescent home business.

“Lately I’ve had to make a point about deferring to the Ward Sister,” he explained. “So she doesn’t get her back up about not being Matron here.” That was particularly vexing since her feathers were most in need of unruffling after she’d gone a few rounds with her ladyship—the same time that Thomas felt most in the mood to kick somebody. 

Fortunately, she was still tied up with the Women’s Institute when Thomas got down to the hospital. He could be sure of it, because Nurse Crawley and Lieutenant Courtenay were canoodling on a bench in the side yard, which they’d not have dared to do if she might catch them.

Well, they were sitting side-by-side and talking, but they might as _well_ have been canoodling, with the way Lieutenant Courtenay ducked his head and laughed at something Nurse Crawley had said. Not for the first time, Thomas noticed that Courtenay looked a bit like Peter when he did that. Reminding himself that he liked them both, and was happy for them, he said politely, “Nurse, Lieutenant.”

Perhaps not quite politely enough. “Have Mama and Cousin Isobel been giving you a hard time again?” Nurse Crawley asked.

“A bit,” Thomas admitted. “But we’ve managed to settle the number of patients. One hundred twenty-four.” It was fairly big, for an officers’ convalescent home—Farley Hall only took eighty-six.

“That’s splendid,” Nurse Crawley said. “I hope we’ll be able to start moving patients in soon,” she added, with a glance at Lieutenant Courtenay.

“That’ll depend on how long it takes the War Office to allocate equipment and personnel,” Thomas said. He chose not to point out that, if she was thinking of introducing Courtenay to the family, she needn’t wait for him to move up there, with a lot of other patients. She could just _invite_ him.

Thomas _was_ happy for them, but there were plenty of other people they could turn to, if they wanted advice about how to conduct their courtship. 

“I expect the new personnel will come as a relief,” Courtenay said. “You seem to be run off your feet lately.”

“I manage,” Thomas said. 

“Goodness,” Nurse Crawley said. “I must go in and see if there’s anything to be done before tea. No, don’t get up,” she told Lieutenant Courtenay. “I expect Sergeant Barrow can take you in when you’re ready?”

With Sister Crawley away at her meeting, _Thomas_ ought to be checking if anything needed doing before the patients’ tea—but Nurse Crawley _was_ an honorary officer, so if she wanted him to stay with Courtenay…. He carefully didn’t think of any of the myriad ways he could have gotten out of it, if she’d asked him to do something he didn’t actually _want_ to do, and said, “Of course.”

Inviting Thomas to sit down next to him, Courtenay said, “I could just about make it back in with the cane.” He paused to a cigarette. “But they do move things around. My big accomplishment for the day was going in the shop on my own, to buy these.” He indicated the cigarette packet.

“The shopkeeper didn’t stiff you on the change?” Thomas asked, lighting one of his own. 

“No—in fact, once she realized I was blind, she made quite a fuss about the ‘lazy girl’ not coming into the shop to help me. So I said I’d asked _Nurse Crawley_ to wait outside, and she practically begged me not to tell anyone what she’d said.”

Thomas could easily imagine the pinch-faced shopkeeper’s horror at realizing she’d called Lady Sybil a _lazy girl_. “Blimey. No, she’d not want that getting back to the family.”

“I expect Nurse Crawley’d find it amusing, though,” Courteany noted. He sighed. “I suppose when I get back to our village, it’ll be like that—everyone thinking I can’t stir a step without a minder.”

“Likely,” Thomas agreed. “Until they get used to it. But you’ll have loads of practice by then—the people in Malvern will be used to blind men out and about.” Malvern was the town where the blind center was located—Nurse Crawley had written for a pamphlet about it, which discussed how its location in a former hotel allowed the patients easy access to the pubs and shops, where they could practice handling money and so on. 

“True,” Courtenay said, the fingers of one hand creeping under his cuff to trace the scars on the opposite wrist. Major Clarkson had taken the stitches out a few days ago, and the cuts were closed up, though the scars still stood out starkly against his pale skin. 

“It’ll be a couple more weeks, at least,” Thomas said. “Before they fade.” He knew Courtenay worried about being sent away again, without warning. He didn’t like having the marks show, but he also clung to Major Clarkson’s promise that he’d stay put until the evidence had faded. “And it could easily be longer, before your name comes up on the waiting list.” The place Major Clarkson had put him down for was a model rehabilitation center, with far more applicants than they had room for. Thomas didn’t know _what_ kind of strings the Major had had to pull, to get Lieutenant Courtenay on the list. 

“I know,” said Courtenay. “I’m sure I’ll be ready by then.”

“We can set up a code,” Thomas suggested. “In case it’s awful. Put ‘the owl flies at midnight’ in a letter, and Nurse Crawley and I will come down and stage a jailbreak.” 

Courtenay laughed, which was what Thomas had wanted. “I don’t expect it’ll be that bad.” He flicked ash from his cigarette. “Will you have time after dinner, to help me write a letter?”

“Course,” Thomas said. “The one to your people?” They’d been talking about what Courtenay ought to say to his family, about their plans to push him aside, but Courtenay hadn’t gotten as far as actually writing it yet. Thomas wondered if he’d wanted to wait until he had a happy announcement to make. 

“Yes,” Courtenay said. “I’ve decided you’re right, about taking a leaf from Sister Crawley’s book. I’ll simply pretend I haven’t noticed that Jack means to replace me, and tell them about all the ideas we’ve come up with, for how I’ll manage the farm and everything.” 

“Good,” Thomas said. “That ought to get the message across.” 

“It won’t settle it,” Courtenay answered. “But it’ll be an opening shot.”

After getting Courtenay settled on his bed, Thomas reported the results of his meeting with her ladyship to Major Clarkson, who was pleased with the result. “I wasn’t sure we’d manage to get her to agree to more than a hundred,” he said. 

“It was touch and go for a bit,” Thomas admitted, and explained about the guest bedrooms. 

Major Clarkson nodded in approval. “That sort of thing is why I knew you’d be the one for this job,” he noted. 

#

“So do we all work for Thomas now?” Daisy asked. She was clearing the servants’ hall table after tea, and Mrs. Hughes was explaining what her ladyship had relayed to her about the dining arrangements for the patients and staff. 

Anna glanced at Mr. Carson to see how he’d respond to this query, but before he could get his mouth open, Miss O’Brien jumped in. “We most certainly do not.”

Daisy’s question had been innocent enough, Anna thought, but Miss O’Brien’s response had put Mr. Carson in the tricky spot of having to agree with Miss O’Brien. He temporized by saying, “We work for Lord and Lady Grantham. That will not change.” 

“But he is in charge,” Daisy said. “Ent he? That’s what it means, Wardmaster?”

“He’ll be in charge of the new people that come to work in the convalescent home,” Anna explained. “We keep on doing our old jobs.”

“But what about when we’re cooking for the convalescent home people?” Daisy pressed on. “Or when you’re cleaning the rooms they’ll be using, and like that?” 

Anna hadn’t really thought of that, and looked to Mrs. Hughes to see if she had, either. “We haven’t quite settled all of the arrangements,” Mrs. Hughes said. “But her ladyship has expressed her confidence that we’ll all work together to make sure that both the household and the convalescent home run smoothly.”

Next to Anna, Ethel murmured something that sounded like, “I’ll bet she does.” Fortunately, no one else seemed to have heard—Mrs. Hughes went on to explain that the orderlies would eat in the breakfast room, but after the nurses, so that they would only need to clean the room once, when everyone had finished. 

“Oh, dear,” said Miss O’Brien. “You mean we’re to have nurses working here?”

“It’s a hospital,” Mr. Bates pointed out. “Of course there’ll be nurses.”

Anna chimed in, “Lady Sybil says that she and the other nurses will take turns working here and at the hospital.” 

Miss O’Brien put on a puzzled expression. “Surely that can’t be. Not if _Thomas_ is in charge of the convalescent home staff….” 

She trailed off, allowing them all to take in the implication. For a moment, Anna thought that Mr. Carson might have another attack. “Perhaps I’ve misunderstood something,” she said quickly. She didn’t really think she had—but perhaps, between one thing and another, no one had quite realized that, under the arrangement they had agreed upon, _Lady Sybil_ would be taking orders from _Thomas_. 

#

“Shall I read it over, then, sir? Make sure we haven’t missed anything?” Thomas asked. Sitting with Courtenay on the bench outside after supper, he’d written out a rough copy of Courtenay’s letter in pencil, with many erasings and additions, to be copied over in ink once Courtenay was satisfied with the wording. 

“Yes, all right,” Courtenay said.

Thomas began:

_Dear Mother,_

_I’m sorry not to have written sooner, but I had a small relapse—nothing to worry about—and there have been quite a few details to be worked out. You’re right, of course, that now that I’m blind, we’ll have to think differently about how I’ll uphold my responsibilities to the farm, the family, and the village._

_Fortunately, I’m far from being the only one facing such challenges, and so the War Office is prepared to help me adjust to the changes._

“Sorry,” Courtenay said. “Now that I think about it, _fortunately_ isn’t really the word, is it?”

Thomas reviewed it. “Er, no, I suppose not. What about—‘since I’m far from being the only one facing such challenges, the War Office is prepared,’ etcetera?”

“Yes,” Courtenay agreed. “That’s much better. Go on.”

Thomas noted that change in the margin, and read on:

_You’ll be glad to know that the Chief Medical Officer here, a Major Clarkson, has arranged for me to go to a specialist school for blind soldiers once I’m ready to leave here._

They had decided on the word “school,” rather than “hospital,” or even “center,” so as to avoid giving Mrs. Courtenay the idea of leaving Courtenay there permanently. The same reasoning was behind the next line, which Thomas now read:

_The usual course of study there is three or four months, and they aim to equip each man to resume his trade or profession. There is a section for officers, so I’m sure I will not be the only gentleman farmer they have had. It’s a model program that can take only a small proportion of those who would benefit from it, so I’m very lucky to have gotten a place. One reason Major Clarkson recommended me for it is that our family’s position in the county will give me the opportunity to be a good example to others. It is very easy to become discouraged after one has been crippled, but I hope that any men among our tenant farmers who have been changed by this war will take heart to see me carrying on to the best of my ability._

Thomas paused in his reading. “Are we sure that’s not laying it on a bit too thick?”

Courtenay shook his head. “She’s very keen on setting a good example. I almost wonder if we oughtn’t to paint an even more vivid picture—a man who thinks being crippled gives him an excuse to lay about and make his wife and children earn the living, being shamed into working by the sight of the young squire, or something like that.” He lit a cigarette. “But I suppose we ought to save something for the next one. Go on.”

Thomas read on:

_You wrote of finding a servant to help me, but the main thing I’m going to need is a reliable man who can serve as secretary, general assistant, and my eyes on the farm. It’ll be a job of work to find the right man, so you might start looking while I’m back in school. It would be an ideal situation for a clever chap from a farming background, who perhaps has an injury that puts him out of doing heavier work. He’ll need to be able to see, of course, and to go round the farms with me, and to write, but don’t count out a man who’s lost a leg, or his non-writing hand, for instance. There are several men working at the hospital who have injuries serious enough to have taken them out of the fighting line, but who manage very well._

_Please give my congratulations to Jack, and my best wishes to Jenny, whom I look forward to getting to know as a sister._

_Your obedient son,_

_Edward Courtenay_

Thomas looked expectantly at Courtenay, then—remembering—said, “Is that everything you wanted to say, sir?” There was nothing in there about Nurse Crawley, for example.

“I believe so,” Courtenay said. “Upholding my responsibilities, the school, setting an example, finding an assistant.” He ticked the items off on his fingers. “Unless you want me to say more about the extremely capable corporal who saved my life one-handed.”

“I shouldn’t think so, sir,” Thomas said. “And I’m a sergeant now.”

“Sorry,” said Courtenay. 

Thomas hesitated. Might as well rip off the bandage. “What about Nurse Crawley?”

Courtenay turned his head toward him. “Nurse Crawley,” he said, “informed me earlier this week that she considers us very warm friends.” 

“Sir?” Thomas said.

“That’s the sort of thing they say when they’re afraid you’re going to propose and they don’t want to have to say no,” he explained. 

“Oh.” Thomas felt a curious mixture of things—relief that he _wasn’t_ marrying Lady Sybil, jealousy that he had wanted to, anger that she hadn’t thought Courtenay was good enough…

“I wasn’t going to, though,” Courtenay added. “I mean, the thought had crossed my mind. A time or two I thought…well, she’s said a thing or two about not minding a husband whose position wasn’t equal to her father’s.”

Thomas recalled her comment about someone unsuitable—but hadn’t that been before Courtenay had arrived? And a country squire was quite a bit below an Earl, but not so far as to be out of the question. Who _could_ it be?

Courtenay went on, “I suppose what I mean is that if she’d hinted that she wanted me to propose—instead of hinting that she didn’t—I probably would have done, but I’m not heartbroken or anything.”

“I see,” Thomas said, even though he really didn’t. 

“She’s very nice,” Courtenay went on. “And she’d certainly help me stand up to Mother, and I expect we’d have gotten on pretty well, but I suppose I’ve mostly enjoyed thinking I’m not entirely repulsive. That I might be attractive to someone.”

To someone. Wouldn’t a normal man have said _to a woman_? Maybe. And now he’d gone on far too long without saying anything. “Yes, sir,” he said automatically. “I daresay you would be. To the right person.”

“Maybe,” said Courtenay, finishing his cigarette and tossing it away. “Seems like a bit of a tall order, but I suppose I won’t count myself out yet.” 

He reached for his cane and stood up, and any opportunity Thomas might have had to make a move was gone. “No, I wouldn’t do that,” he said, standing up as well. “I’ll make a fair copy of this, and bring it for you to sign in the morning, all right?”

Courtenay nodded. “Thanks, Barrow. You’re a pal.”

The question of whether “you’re a pal” meant the same thing as “warm friends” occupied Thomas’s mind for most of the walk up to the house. 

“We wondered if you were stuck at the hospital overnight again,” Anna said, as he went into the servants’ hall and sat down. Daisy was laying the table, and Carson and Mrs. Hughes hadn’t come in yet, so he wasn’t _quite_ late for dinner. 

“I was helping a patient with a letter,” Thomas explained. 

“Your Lieutenant Courtenay?” she asked.

“He’s not mine, but yes.” He added, “Apparently Nurse Crawley’s told him she considers them warm friends.”

“Oh,” Anna said sympathetically. “Was he upset?”

So Courtenay was right, about what it meant. Still didn’t answer the “pals” question. “I’m not sure. He said he wasn’t, but…well, I’m not sure.”

“Speaking of letters,” Bates said, “you had one in the evening post.”

Thomas went over to his pigeonhole to get it. An Army envelope, the Wardmaster’s handwriting. Thomas had written to tell him about his new post. Should be all right, though Thomas couldn’t help thinking of the reaction he’d get from _Carson_ if he wrote to tell him he’d just been made a butler. 

He opened it and read:

_23 April, 1917_

_TB—_

_Glad to hear your news, son. I expect you’d have made sergeant about now if you’d stayed here, too. They’ve been snatching blokes away from us left and right, to put into combat units. Running a convalescent home with a gen-you-wine Lady in charge seems like a fucking nightmare to me, but I’m sure you’ll be good at it. And I don’t need to tell you to watch your fucking language!_

_I don’t know if any of your lads have written you yet with the bad news._

With the Wardmaster’s joke about watching his language at the top of his mind, Thomas just managed not to swear, but his hand clenched, crumpling the paper.

“Is something wrong?” Anna asked. 

Thomas shook his head and read on. 

_Rawlins, Eakins, and Hutchinson caught a packet—shrapnel shell. Rawlins should come out all right. Foot blown off, but we sent him back to Base a couple of days ago, and I’m pulling strings to get him sent to the Royal Orthopedic once he’s out of France._

_Keep me posted, and when it’s finally over, we’ll get a fucking drink, all right?_

_WT_

God _damn_. He took a deep breath. Anna put her hand on his arm. “What is it?”

“Remember those letters I used to get before I went? ‘I don’t know if you’ve heard, but’?” He swallowed hard. “It’s started up again, that’s all. Two of my men were killed, and my mate lost his leg.”

“I’m sorry,” Anna said. 

Thomas shook his head. “Eakins was this little Cockney bloke who hadn’t had a decent meal in his life before he joined the Army. Could barely read. Right hard worker.” The Yorkshire Victoria Cross. “Hutch would’ve been looking after him, when it happened. He did that. Big bloke. Barman, about your age.” He nodded to Bates. “Strong as an ox. Usually paired him up with one of the runty lads. Because they’d work until they fell over, Eakins and Wallace.” 

Carson and Mrs. Hughes came in then, and Thomas stood, automatically, with the others. As they sat down again, Carson started holding forth, but with his mind half in France, Thomas didn’t realize until Carson paused, and then rumbled, “ _Well_?” that he was being accused of something. 

“What?” he said vaguely. 

“This may not be the time, Mr. Carson,” Bates said. “He’s just had word that some of his friends were killed.”

Thomas braced himself for some unpleasant remark, but all Carson said was, “I’m sorry to hear that.”

Lang, surprisingly, spoke up. “It’s such a waste. The whole thing is such a waste.” 

Carson cleared his throat. “They died in service to their king and country. We cannot say that is a waste.”

“Don’t,” Thomas said. Everyone turned to look at him. “Don’t talk as if you knew anything about it. You don’t have the right.” 

“I beg your pardon,” said Carson, acerbically. “But I will speak on any subject I choose. Just because you—”

Thomas shoved his chair back, and fled to the courtyard. He’d just lit a cigarette and the door opened, casting out a shaft of light, and Lang stepped out. 

Thinking of Rawlins, Thomas shifted over on the crate he was sitting on. Lang sat down beside him. “They can’t understand,” he said. “If they haven’t been there, they haven’t _seen_ it, they just….”

“I know,” Thomas said. “He was probably trying to be….” He shook his head. Not kind. Carson wasn’t kind. “Magnanimous. Sanctimonious fucker.”

“Imagine him in a trench,” Lang said. “He’d probably faint dead away the first time he stepped on a corpse.”

Thomas laughed, imagining the look on Carson’s face. “He wouldn’t even last that long. He’d get his head blown off first thing, cause he’s too good to fucking _duck_.”

“He might stand up on the parapet to give the Hun a piece of his mind,” Lang suggested. 

“What would he say,” Thomas wondered, “to the poor fucker who had the bad taste to get his brains all over his nice clean uniform?”

“I don’t know, but he’d start by telling him to ‘stand up straight and pull himself together,’” Lang said, imitating Carson’s voice. 

“You know what might make him understand?” Thomas asked. “If we tell him that in the trenches, the officers _don’t even dress for dinner_.”

They both collapsed into giggles. 

“Lice,” Lang said, when he caught his breath. “Imagine Mr. Carson with _lice_.”

Thomas shook his head. “ _Company baths_.” In his best Carson voice, he said, “I beg your pardon, but I will not ‘take my kit off.’ I don’t care if you are a sergeant; I regard the suggestion as utterly indecent.”

Lang laughed so hard he almost choked. “No, but—the first time someone told him to _shift his fucking arse_.” Then, abruptly as the hilarity had overtaken them, Lang sobered. “If he saw that boy William blown to pieces in front of him. What would he say then?”

“He _might_ care,” Thomas said, seriously. “He likes William. He might care, if William comes back blind, or legless, or gassed out, or barmy. He might care, or he might decide William had it coming.”

“You think so?” Lang asked.

“I don’t know.” Thomas wasn’t sure why he’d said it, but now that he had, it seemed true. “He took a real dislike to Bates, when he first showed up.”

“Really?”

“Yeah—I’m not sure what changed. He does change his mind about people, though. He liked _me_ my first week or two.” Thomas _did_ know what had changed, there. 

“Because he found out about…?”

“Yeah,” Thomas said. 

“I’m surprised he didn’t sack you,” Lang noted.

“Well, he didn’t catch me _in the act_ or anything like that,” Thomas said, wondering what Lang was imagining. It was probably a lot more lurid than what had really happened.

“Mr. Bates, when he was telling me about it—you did want him to tell me about it, didn’t you?”

“ _Want_ is too strong of a word,” Thomas said. “But I thought you had better know, since everyone else does.” 

“Oh,” Lang said. “Well, he said he wondered if you’d…tried something. With Mr. Carson.”

Thomas let out an involuntary yelp of disgust. “Ew! God, no.” But if Bates was speculating about _that_ , it might be better to let the real story out. “Nothing quite that bad. But—I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Carson can be a little…queany.” At Lang’s blank expression, he added, “Effeminate. Not a lot—and less now than before—but honestly, if you had to guess, him or me?”

Lang nodded. “I see what you mean.”

“So I’d been here a couple of weeks, and the Dowager came to dine. You’ve encountered the Dowager.” She’d been at the ill-fated dinner party. 

“Briefly,” Lang said. 

“She’s catty,” Thomas said. “And if she’s bored enough—if the family aren’t rising to the bait—she’ll rope you into it. Servants, I mean. And Carson plays up to her—she likes it. I’ve forgotten the exact details—” They’d been blotted out by the sheer horror of what had happened next, “—but she said something catty to him, he said something catty back, and I wasn’t used to her yet then, so when we got back in the servery, I asked him if it was really all right for him to drop so many hairpins in the dining room.”

Lang looked puzzled. Right; being normal, the phrase wouldn’t mean anything to him.

“It means….” Thomas had to think for a moment about how to explain what it meant. “Sending out signals. That you’re…you know. I have no idea how _he_ knew what it meant, since he isn’t, but he slapped me into the wall, and he’s hated me ever since.” He frowned. “He took the wine glasses I was holding out of my wages, too.” 

“Blimey,” Lang said. 

“If he did it now, I’d quit,” Thomas said, shrugging his good shoulder. “But at the time, I was young and stupid enough to feel like it’d be running away from a challenge. And he couldn’t sack me, because I’d have told them upstairs that he hit me.” 

“The other footman didn’t see?” Lang asked.

Thomas shook his head. “I’d not have said it if anyone else was there. It was the first footman’s evening out, and the second was, I don’t know—downstairs getting the next course or something.” Thomas was surprised by how vividly the memory came back to him—the expression of fury on Carson’s face, the crunch of the glasses, the moment of dizzy confusion as his mind caught up to the fact that the funny old quean had just belted him hard enough to make his teeth rattle. 

He’d told Mrs. Hughes, he recalled, that he’d tripped and fallen, and in the servants’ hall afterward, Carson had lectured him about his clumsiness in front of everyone. 

Abruptly, Thomas realized that telling that particular story to Lang, who already found going into the dining room with Carson hard on his nerves, was a bit less than ideal. “Er, he doesn’t go around hitting people regularly,” Thomas said. “As far as I know, that was the only time.”

“Even so,” Lang said. “They’d all look at him differently if they knew.”

“Don’t tell them,” Thomas said quickly. “I mean, I don’t mind if they know I made that mistake, and Carson took it badly.” That was, after all, why he’d told Lang in the first place—so they wouldn’t go on thinking he’d _made a pass at Carson_. “But not about the other thing.”

“It’s nothing for _you_ to be ashamed of,” Lang said. 

“I didn’t hit him back, did I?” Thomas asked. Flicking away his cigarette end, he stood up. “Better get back, if we don’t want to be sent to bed without our suppers.”

No one took any particular notice of them when they resumed their places at the table, and helped themselves to what was left of the meal. There wasn’t much left, but then, Thomas wasn’t particularly hungry, and Lang didn’t seem to be, either. 

He was still pushing his food around on the plate when Daisy started clearing the table. Mrs. Hughes, getting up to leave, said, “Thomas, when you’ve finished, come to my sitting room.”

“Yes, Mrs. Hughes,” he said. Fortunately, Anna was still at the table, so when Carson and Mrs. Hughes were gone, he turned to her and asked, “What’s that about?”

“About the nurses,” Anna said. 

“What about them?”

“Weren’t you listening when Mr. Carson asked you? They’re wondering who’s going to supervise them up here, with Mrs. Crawley down at the hospital.”

“Oh. Caught on to that, did they?” He’d known they would sooner or later, and that it would take some fast footwork to explain, but he really wasn’t in the mood.

“Miss O’Brien did,” Anna explained.

“Figures.” 

“So who _will_ be supervising them?” Anna asked.

Thomas raised an eyebrow. 

“No,” Anna said. “Does her ladyship know?”

“It was me or Mrs. Crawley,” Thomas said. “There’s a bit of finagling we did, about how they’re under the Ward-Sister’s charge, and I’m only directing them in the performance of their duties in her absence. I’ve done it before, down at the hospital.”

“Mr. Carson’s not going to like it,” Anna pointed out. “The rest of them, maybe, but _Lady Sybil_?”

“I know he isn’t,” Thomas said. “But it isn’t actually his decision.”

Still, he was glad that Mrs. Hughes was going to be there, when he told him. And even so, he wasn’t in much of a hurry to do it. 

But there was only so long he could go on pretending to be eating. When he went and knocked on Mrs. Hughes’s door, Carson was already in there, sitting in one of the two chairs in front of her fire. Thomas, without waiting to be asked, brought around the chair from her desk—he was the fucking _Wardmaster_ ; he wasn’t going to stand there on the carpet like a naughty hall-boy. 

“So you’re wondering around the supervisory arrangements for the medical personnel?” he asked.

Carson opened his mouth, and Mrs. Hughes shot him a quelling glare. “We are,” she said. “We understand there will be both orderlies and nurses working here?”

“Yes,” Thomas said. “The Army’s usual practice is to have an NCO in charge of the men, and a Matron or Sister in charge of the women. That’s how we’ve done it at the hospital. Unfortunately, the War Office isn’t able to allocate us another NCO and another ranking nurse. We thought about having all the women work in one location and all the men in the other, but one of the advantages of having the convalescent home so close to the hospital is being able to rotate personnel between the two. That way, when the patients come up here, they’ll find some familiar faces. And it’s a bit of a respite for the staff as well—hospital work can be fairly grim.” 

“I’m sure it must be,” Mrs. Hughes said. 

“Yes. Most weeks, we have at least a couple of deaths. Not nearly as many as a unit in France would see, but it’s still difficult.” With the reasoning behind the unorthodox arrangement established, he went on, “So what we decided—Major Clarkson and her ladyship, and Sister Crawley and me—is that we’ll have personnel of both sexes at both locations. I’m in overall charge of the men, and Sister Crawley of the women. That is, when it comes to discipline, training, determining what sort of duties each person is suited for, she handles the women, and any concerns she has about the men, she refers to me—and vice-versa.”

Carson cleared his throat. “And as for the day-to-day?”

Thomas had hoped Carson wouldn’t ask that. “As for the day-to-day, it’s a bit tricky, because the young ladies are honorary officers, but when they’re assigned to work here, the Ward Sister will instruct them that they are expected to do as I recommend. If they don’t, she’ll hear about it, and in turn, if I recommend anything the Ward Sister doesn’t approve of, Major Clarkson will hear about it.”

Mrs. Hughes was nodding, and looked reasonably satisfied, but Carson’s expression was thunderous. 

Thomas continued, “It’s not precisely according to the rule-book, but it’s standard practice for young field-officers to rely upon the advice of an experienced NCO, so it’s not entirely irregular, either.” They were, in fact, stretching that analogy to the breaking-point, but there it was. “We’ve also agreed that if any of the nurses are unable to adjust to this arrangement, they won’t be required to work at the convalescent home. The men are subject to military discipline, so they’ll adjust, or else.” 

“And her ladyship has agreed to this?” Carson asked, skeptically.

“She has. She also plans to be quite involved in the running of the convalescent home, so she’ll be keeping an eye on the young ladies, as well.”

Carson began to rumble, and Mrs. Hughes said, “I’m sure you understand that…well, how it will look. To the others. Especially where Lady Sybil is concerned.”

Carson made a sort of strangled noise. 

“I do,” Thomas said. “Look, the rest of this is all for public consumption, but between the three of us, her ladyship…thinks it best to keep Mrs. Crawley at arm’s length from the house. Otherwise, we’d likely have had her here as Matron.” 

He paused to let that sink in, and Mrs. Hughes asked, “If she’s being kept at arm’s length, why is she so often here, discussing the plans with you and her ladyship?”

“Exactly,” Thomas said. “That’s what she’s doing when she has no official role at all. Imagine what she’d be like if she were in charge.” By now, she’d probably have worked her way round to suggesting that the family move into a two-up and two-down in the village so the convalescent home can use the whole house.

“You’re speaking of a member of the family,” Carson snapped. 

Thomas sighed inwardly and reined in his temper. “I am,” he said. _And you can’t stand her, so what are you on about?_ “She’s a very good nurse, and an efficient manager. But she does like having things her own way, and she doesn’t entirely appreciate that the rest of the family are making a sacrifice to give up as much of the house as they have.” Because they had about ten times as much house as any normal people would even dream of thinking they needed, but that was neither here nor there. 

“And you do?” Carson demanded.

“I understand what they’re used to,” Thomas said. “And I understand what goes into running a house like this, and that it’s as much of a balancing act as running a hospital. That’s one of the reasons why her ladyship and Major Clarkson decided I was the one for the job.” That was another point; one that Carson didn’t seem to quite grasp yet. “I don’t expect you to like it, but I take my orders from Major Clarkson, and this is what he’s ordered me to do. Unless you’re suggesting _mutiny_ , I’m not sure what you expect me to do about it.” Feeling the last shreds of his temper starting to fray, Thomas stood up. “Now, I’ve had a very long day. If you want to discuss this further, we can do it when I’m on duty.” 

He left, without waiting to be dismissed.

#

“Well,” said Mrs. Hughes, after Thomas had left—not _quite_ slamming the door behind him, but shutting it a bit more firmly than he would have had to. “It sounds as though they have thought it through.” 

“I don’t believe it,” said Mr. Carson. “Her ladyship can’t possibly think….” He let out a gusty sigh, apparently unable to even voice what her ladyship couldn’t possibly think. 

It was Mrs. Hughes who had suggested the simple expedient of asking Thomas directly, after Miss O’Brien had raised the point. She’d been thinking of the confusion about Thomas’s billet, back in the winter, and how it would have saved them all a bit of trouble to have simply asked at the beginning, instead of speculating and stewing over it for days. She’d hoped that there might be a similarly reassuring explanation—a woman nurse who would join them once the convalescent home was up and running, perhaps, to take charge of the young ladies. 

“It seems that she does,” she answered. “I can ask her, the next time we speak about the convalescent home, to make sure there isn’t anything we’re missing, but I daresay Thomas knows as much about it as anyone. So unless you _are_ suggesting mutiny….”

Mr. Carson shook his head. “There’ll be no controlling him after this. Not that there was much before.”

Thomas had never seemed particularly out of control to Mrs. Hughes, but she let that pass. “It’s Major Clarkson’s job to control him now,” she pointed out instead. 

Carson gave her an arch look. “I’ve been given to understand that his lordship expects us to take him back at war’s end.” He huffed. “I won’t have it. I shall have to put my foot down, when the time comes.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Mrs. Hughes suggested. “It may not even happen.” It looked to her as though Thomas had _outgrown_ being a footman. If he didn’t go into hospital work permanently, she thought, he might well look for his next position as a butler.

#

Over the next couple of weeks, preparations for the convalescent home moved forward. The War Office agreed to send a number of new orderlies and VADs which was fewer than they had hoped for, but more than they had feared. The new orderlies arrived in time to assist the Downton staff with clearing out the household furnishings, and moving in the hospital ones. They began with the rooms the family would miss the least, and it was with great pride that Thomas arranged the former morning room. The linen shelves would divide the room in half, screening off his desk from the more public section of the room. His “office” wasn’t large, but he did scrounge a couple of old chairs from the attic, feeling that a Wardmaster’s office ought to have them. 

The outer part of the room held a locking cupboard for drugs and an old table—also rescued from Downton’s attics—for the orderlies to sit at. On it, Thomas put a spirit stove—he’d ordered the same model they’d had in France—and kettle. The tea canister, he filled with a blend of two parts standard issue, one part Fortnum’s Superior. 

The thought did cross his mind, a time or two, that it would be nice to have a cat, but he supposed Isis the Labrador, who decided that the orderlies’ room fire was a cozy spot, would have to do. 

At the same time, Thomas wrote to Rawlins at the Royal Orthopedic, and waited anxiously for a reply. As he knew, the journey from the 47th Ambulance to a London hospital was far from straightforward. It took over a week for Rawlins to write back:

_10 May, 1917_

_Barrow,_

_I’m in London now, and not feeling too shabby. It hurts some, where my foot was, but the worst bit is when I wake up in the middle of the night, and go to put my feet on the floor. I forget, you know. But they tell me a missing foot’s not bad at all, as these things go, and once the stump’s healed enough to put a wooden one on, I shouldn’t have too much trouble._

_We were just doing a normal stretcher-party, when it happened. Not even a particularly bad night—we were just in the wrong spot at the wrong time. Babcock was with us, too, but he only caught a few small pieces, so he’s all right. Hutchins was quick, but Eakins hung on for a while. Wallace is taking it pretty hard. Or he was, anyway. I don’t know what’s been going on since I left._

_Do you ever make it down to London, when you get a day off? I wouldn’t mind seeing you._

_Rawlins_

By this time, they were about a week out from opening the convalescent home. He hadn’t had a half-day since the fishing trip with Courtenay, and he hadn’t expected he’d get one until the convalescent home was up and running smoothly—if it ever was. But it was Rawlins, and he wouldn’t have asked if it weren’t important, so Thomas asked to speak with Major Clarkson. 

“Barrow,” he said, when Thomas had fallen into parade-rest in front of his desk. “I was just about to send for you, as it happens. The War Office will be sending us the rest of the beds this coming Monday.”

“Very good, sir,” Thomas said. The beds—for the convalescent home, of course—were the last major item that they’d been waiting to hear about. He’d need to be there for that, of course, but Tuesday might be quiet—

“And we’ll be getting a consignment of patients from the York hospital on Tuesday afternoon.” 

“Sir?” They had been expecting to begin moving their own patients to the convalescent home sometime toward the end of next week, and begin taking patients from other small hospitals in the area the following week. 

“The War Office would like us to get up to full capacity as quickly as we can,” Major Clarkson explained. “There’s something planned for early June, apparently. So the field units must be cleared of patients, which means the Base Hospitals must take them, and,” he gestured, “you know how it works.”

“Yes, sir,” Thomas said automatically. Patients would be pushed back along the chain of evacuation until there was no further back to send them. 

“I trust we can be ready?”

“Yes, sir.” Mentally, Thomas ran through the list of things to be done. The linens were due to be delivered on Friday, and now they’d have to be laundered, folded, and put away before Monday. Mrs. Coulter, the laundress, would kick like a carthorse, so he’d best set aside at least an hour tomorrow—Thursday—for sweet-talking her. And another hour on Friday for checking that they’d remembered to fold the things so the stamps showed. The dishes and cutlery for patient use had arrived, but were still stacked in crates in the old scullery. They hadn’t sorted out yet where they’d be stored; that meant sparring a few rounds with Mrs. Hughes and Mrs. Patmore—if he was lucky, and Carson didn’t decide he needed to be involved in the decision. Best schedule that for tomorrow, as well, so the actual putting-away could—with luck—take place on Friday. The stuff from the medical supplies depot—drugs, bandages, thermometers, and so on—was coming Saturday. Checking the deliveries alone would take half a day, and if they were opening on Tuesday, they’d need to get those things put away, as well—and finish moving all the stuff out of the silver room, since that was where they had decided the medical supplies would go. That task didn’t demand Thomas’s constant presence—Carson had informed him that he would be supervising it—but since his lads would be doing most of the work, he had to keep an eye on things, and stop them getting off on the wrong foot with Carson. “It’ll be tight, sir, but we’ll be ready.” 

“I’m sure you’ll manage,” Major Clarkson said. “I’ve just telephoned to Lady Grantham, about the new timetable. She says everything is going as smoothly as can be expected, and that you’re to be commended for keeping on top of things.”

“That’s kind of her to say,” Thomas said automatically. In fact, he’d let the matters of the dishes and the silver room slide, because he knew it would mean an argument. He could—he _would_ —get everything done, but he certainly wouldn’t be taking a day off in the middle of it. 

Moving on, Major Clarkson asked, “What was it you wanted to speak with me about?”

“Nothing, sir. That is, I was hoping I could manage some time off to run down to London for a day, but with the new timetable, I don’t need to ask.”

“No,” Major Clarkson said, a bit testily. “You don’t. In fact, I’m surprised you would in any case. You know how busy we are just now.”

 _Of course I fucking know._ “Yes, sir.”

Major Clarkson sighed. “What is it you need to do in London?”

Reminding himself that there was no reason whatsoever to lie, Thomas explained, “One of my men, from my section in France, has just been sent home. Lost his leg. He asked me to come see him in hospital.” 

“I see,” said Major Clarkson. “I’m sorry—it’s not an unreasonable request, especially given how little time off you’ve taken. But I don’t see how we can manage it.” 

“Yes, sir. I understand.” 

“Not just now, at least,” he added. “Once the patients have been settled in, and the routines are established….” He looked sharply at Thomas. “He isn’t dying, is he? Your friend?”

“No, sir. Not that I know of.” 

Clarkson sat back in his chair. “Perhaps toward the end of the month. Remind me then.”

“Yes, sir,” Thomas said. It was more generous than he had a right to expect. “Thank you.” 

He didn’t have much time to dwell on the question of whether whatever it was Rawlins wanted could wait until the end of the month. The next day, after the morning chores at the hospital were finished, he walked back up the hill to Downton and did battle with the laundress. She was predictably displeased to have her schedule for the next few days thrown into turmoil, and wasn’t afraid to show it. “The only way we might have a chance of getting it done is if we work on the Sunday. We aren’t paid to work on a Sunday—not that you could pay me enough to violate the Sabbath, and put my ’mortal soul in peril.”

Thomas wondered if it would do any good to point out that soldiers fought, and died, on the Sabbath, the same as any other day. Likely not. He waited for her to wind down, and said, “What do you suggest, Mrs. Coulter?” This was a trick he’d learned recently. Most people—apart from Sister Crawley—had no more aim in mind when they complained, than a dog had when it howled at the moon, and if asked to produce a solution, would shut up. 

“Well, they could have sent the sheets any time before now, couldn’t they?” she asked. “We’ve known all about this convalescent business for weeks now. Why are we only getting the sheets a few days before?”

Thomas almost said, _The War Office moves in mysterious ways_ , but realized just in time that, given Mrs. Coulter’s remarks about the Sabbath, she might not appreciate blasphemy, either. “You’re right,” he said, “they could have, but they didn’t, and at this point, there’s no getting them any faster than tomorrow. They’ll need to be clean for the patients to lie on them on Tuesday. I cannot get the sheets to come any sooner, or the patients any later. Is there anything I can do to help you get your part done in time?”

“Like what?” she asked suspiciously.

 _I have no idea; that’s why I asked you, you old bat_. “I could give you a couple of orderlies for a day or two ,” he suggested. 

“Men? In _here_?” She shook her head. “Oh, no. When we gets the coppers going, the air’s so wet, your clothes stick right to you. T’wouldn’t be decent, to have men.”

“Well, men are all I’ve got,” Thomas said. “What if I sent some to do some of the work on Sunday, when you’re not here?”

“Have they worked in a laundry before?” she asked.

Thomas mentally reviewed his section. “Not that I can recall.”

Her red, round face creased up in confusion. “What?”

“No.” 

“Then I can’t have ‘em in here mucking up the place,” she said. “Heaven knows what I’d find when me and me girls come back on Monday.”

Thomas thought she was probably right. When she produced no suggestions of her own, Thomas pulled out the big gun. “Well,” he said, “should we ask her ladyship how we ought to solve this problem?”

No one had ever responded to this question in the affirmative before, and Mrs. Coulter, fortunately, did not break form. After a great deal more hemming and hawing, she finally concluded that if they put in a bit of extra work, they’d probably be able to manage after all. 

So that was one item he could tick off his list—though he’d be unsurprised if they had to go through it again at least once before Tuesday—but he couldn’t rest on his laurels for long. Next up was the Crockery Problem. 

“Can’t you put them on the shelves in the old scullery?” Mrs. Patmore asked. 

“I’m not sure that’s suitable,” Mrs. Hughes put in, delicately. 

“Why not?” Mrs. Patmore asked. “There’s plenty of room in there.”

“We’re using it as the sink-room,” Thomas explained. 

“And what’s that?” Mrs. Patmore demanded.

“It’s where they wash things,” Mrs. Hughes said. “ _Hospital_ things.”

Mrs. Patmore continued to look blank.

Thomas sighed. “Bedpans,” he said. “Sick-basins. Dressing-trays that’ve had dirty bandages in them. Unless you want a dysentery outbreak, we can’t have _dishes_ in the same room with all that.” 

“Thank you, Thomas,” said Mrs. Hughes, tartly. 

After much considering of alternatives, they finally settled on the boot room—although, since the shelves in there were used to hold anything and everything that the servants didn’t know where else to put, clearing space for them would be another full day’s work. “You can have some orderlies do it,” Mrs. Hughes said cheerily. “You’ll know what things we need to keep on hand, and what can be thrown out, or taken down into the cellar.”

Of course he could—in all this spare time he had weighing on his hands. 

He’d have to do it at the same time as they were clearing the silver room, he decided. That way, he could supervise the boot-room clear-out, and keep an eye on how his lads were getting on with Carson. 

Unfortunately, that meant he had to pin Carson down on when they’d do the silver room. 

“Before Saturday?” Carson demanded, when Thomas put it to him. “When in Heaven’s name do you think I’ll have time to do _that_? We’ve the Frobishers coming to dine on Friday. _Tomorrow_ , in case you’ve forgotten.”

“It would be best,” Thomas said carefully, “if we could have the space available by Saturday afternoon, so we can move the medical supplies in directly. But if that isn’t possible, Monday at the absolute latest. Monday morning, before the beds arrive.”

“Why must you always leave everything until the last minute?”

 _Because I knew you’d be awful about it regardless_. “I’m very sorry, Mr. Carson, but as I said, the War Office took us by surprise, moving the opening up a week earlier than we’d expected.” _And you’ve known as long as I have that we were going to have to do it; you could have suggested a day._ “If you aren’t able to supervise the operation, I’m sure we can manage on our own.”

“I will not have a lot of sticky fingers pawing over the silver without my direct, personal supervision,” Carson snapped. 

“That’s what I thought, but you seem to be telling me that you aren’t able to do it.”

“Surely you can put the _medical supplies_ somewhere else,” Carson said, managing to make _medical supplies_ sound like an obscene word. “I don’t see why we should have to put _all_ of the silver into storage.”

It wasn’t all of the silver; the commonly-used pieces that lived on shelves in Carson’s pantry would stay there, and there was space enough for a few others that Carson couldn’t bear to be parted from. “Lady Grantham agreed that doing so was a sacrifice she was willing to make, for the war effort. It isn’t as though they’ve been doing a lot of entertaining in prewar style.”

“That isn’t the point!”

“Then what is the point, Mr. Carson? If you can help me to understand the problem, perhaps we can come up with a solution.” The point, of course, was that Carson didn’t like the convalescent home very much, and he liked Thomas being in charge of it even less. 

But Carson could hardly come out and say that, and so changed the subject. “Saturday morning, then, if we must. And mind the men you send know we won’t have any barracks-language in this house.”

“Yes, Mr. Carson,” Thomas said, and mentally kicked himself for saying it. He didn’t work for Carson; he could have said, _all right_ or _we’ll do our best_ or anything like that.

He was also, he thought gloomily as he trudged back down the hill to the hospital, going to have to have it make clear that they couldn’t call him _Thomas_ in front of his men. They _ought_ to call him Sergeant Barrow—and doubtless would if it were anyone else—but he could live with just plain _Barrow._

Saturday, Thomas lined up the men he’d chosen for the day’s work in the hospital’s side yard. “You’ve all been to the house before, but don’t think just because we’re downstairs today, you can make yourselves at home. That means, for starters, no trying anything with any of the women. Griff, I’m looking at you,” he added to the one-eyed former artilleryman, who spoke frequently of his exploits with estaminet girls in France. “There’s one maid, Ethel, who’ll flirt with anything in trousers. You might as well enjoy it—since she’ll keep doing it either way—but keep your hands to yourselves, and don’t say anything you wouldn’t say in church. Got it?”

“Yes, Sarge,” they said. 

“Second, the butler won’t have foul language—and as far as he’s concerned, ‘blast’ is foul language. If you fucking cunts say anything worse than that, there’ll be hell to pay.” That got the expected laugh, which Thomas hoped would help them remember this crucial point. “You call the butler Mr. Carson, and the housekeeper Mrs. Hughes.”

One of the new lads half-raised his hand. “And what about his nibs and all them?”

“His _lordship_ ,” Thomas said. “If you call him _his nibs_ or anything like it in front of Carson, he’ll have a heart attack. It’s unlikely we’ll be seeing any of them today—they don’t come downstairs much. But if they _do_ come downstairs, you’ll know, because it’ll be like a general just walked into the barracks. All you’ve got to do is brace up and keep your mouths shut. If they speak to you, which is even less likely, he’s Colonel Grantham, or sir, and she’s ‘my lady.’ So are the young ladies.”

Franklin frowned, and said, “What about Nurse Crawley? When we’re all working up there, I mean. Do we have to start calling her ‘my lady’?”

That was another item on Thomas’s list that he’d been putting off. “I’ll ask her, before we open. It won’t come up today, since she’s down here.” He went on, “Moving back to Mr. Carson, those of you who are helping with the silver, no jokes about pocketing the spoons. He already thinks you’ll rob the place blind if you get a chance, and he’s got no sense of humor on that subject.” Or any other, really. “The only places you can smoke are the courtyard and the servants’ hall—and for the servants’ hall, not if Mr. Carson or any of the women are present. You will _not_ be smoking as you work.” A number of them groaned at that, and Thomas reminded them, “I don’t like it any more than you do. Last thing. The footman, Henry Lang, was invalided out. Shell shock. Don’t give him a hard time.” 

The murmur that followed that instruction was one of agreement, fortunately. When they got up to the house, a few of them did eye Lang warily, as if waiting for him to do something loony, but Thomas thought that was better than having them speculating about why he wasn’t in uniform—particularly if Lang happened to overhear it. 

Cleaning out the boot room proved to be as unwieldy a chore as Thomas had expected. The best approach he could come up with was to station himself at the table, and have one man start on each side of the room, emptying out the cupboards and shelves as he came to them, and bringing their contents to Thomas for him to figure out what to do with them. A third man took the items where Thomas decided they should go, whether back to the boot-room cupboards, out to the rubbish heap, or down to the cellars. 

It was weirdly interesting, seeing all of the things that had piled up in the boot room over the centuries, accreting like geological layers. A shoal of different patent silver-polishes, dried to dust in their bottles and tins, which some early-Victorian butler must have bought in hopes of finding one that was good enough to save him the trouble of making his own. He must’ve not succeeded, but hadn’t been willing to throw the lot away, after he’d spent money on it, so he’d shoved them in here, in case they came in handy someday.

A jumbled nest of rusted iron pothooks, last used a century or more ago, to hang pots over the hearth in the old kitchen. When they’d put in the stove, had the cook at the time distrusted it, as Mrs. Patmore distrusted anything modern now? She might have stashed them in here, to be brought out in triumph to save the day when the newfangled nonsense failed. 

A brace of carriage lamps—why they were here, and not in the carriage-house, Thomas wasn’t sure. Perhaps they’d been brought up to be cleaned, when the carriage they belonged to had been smashed up in an accident, or simply sold. 

There were also things he remembered seeing pass out of use: the candlesticks they used to put on a table by the main stairs, before the electricity, for the family and guests to carry up to bed. Spare chimneys for the gas fixtures—the fixtures had been converted to electricity, and the chimneys kept on them for the look of things, but they scarcely ever broke them now, since they weren’t removing them several times a day to trim the wicks and wipe away the soot. 

Thomas had broken at least half a dozen of them himself, when he’d been third footman. It used to take him half the morning to go around doing the lamps—and, in the winter, half the afternoon to go around doing them again. He wondered if any of the ones he was looking at now—deciding whether to throw them away, or shove them into the cellar to be found by someone doing a clear-out a century hence—were replacements for the ones he’d broken, the cost of them taken out of his wages. 

They probably were; he was the last third footman the house had ever had. They hadn’t needed one anymore, once the electricity was laid on. How furious he’d been, to become second footman and find out he still had to go on laying the fires! 

He handed Wiggins the crate of chimneys, and told him to put them in the cellar. “No problem, Sarge,” he said. “Say, how come they call this the boot room, anyhow?” Wiggins was always asking why this or how that. Another East Ender, though one who had managed to grow to regulation size, he seemed to have sucked up as much education as could be gotten from a council school in a slum, and was always on the lookout for more. 

“Because they clean the boots and shoes in it,” Thomas said. 

“They need a whole room for that?” Wiggins asked, incredulous.

Back when they had a boot-boy, he’d have slept in here—but those days had been over even before Thomas came to the house. “When they have a big house party, and there’s all the riding boots to do, or they’ve been tramping around in the mud, shooting and whatever else they do, it helps to have a place to toss them all until we get round to them. But no—not really. That’s why all the junk gets shoved in here.”

Wiggins whistled, and hefted the box to take downstairs. 

A short while later, Mrs. Hughes came in. “Goodness,” she said, looking at the mess spread out on the table. “This room _has_ been due for a clear-out, hasn’t it?”

“It has,” Thomas agreed. That was something they could have asked him to do last winter, when he’d have been grateful for any way to earn his keep. He supposed no one had thought of it. “We’ve found a few interesting things,” he added, picking up a large book with a cracked leather cover. “Looks like an old wine ledger, from the 40’s. No idea how it ended up in here, but Mr. Carson might want to put it in his pantry with the others.”

Frowning, Mrs. Hughes wiped some of the dust off the cover, and opened the book to somewhere in the middle. “It does look like a wine ledger,” she agreed. “But don’t the ones from back then have red covers?”

Thomas pictured them, standing in neat ranks on the shelves in Carson’s pantry. “I think so.” He shrugged his good shoulder. “From the London house? If Carson doesn’t want it, he can put it on the burn pile.” 

She nodded, and went on, “Mrs. Patmore’s made some lemonade—she thought your men would appreciate it, with all this dusty work.”

“That was kind of her,” Thomas said—entirely sincerely. He wondered what it was about. “Lads—break time.” 

“Daisy’s taking it in to the servants’ hall,” Mrs. Hughes added. 

Thomas trotted down to the silver room, where he found Carson glowering, and Lang putting silver pieces into cloth bags, with trembling hands. “Where are Griffiths and Palmer?” Thomas asked. 

“On the way back from the attic, if they haven’t gotten lost,” said Mr. Carson, tartly. 

“I thought you needed them to help with the packing,” Thomas pointed out. Otherwise, Carson and Lang could have done the packing any time, and Thomas’s men carted the stuff up to the attic at their leisure.

“I thought,” Carson said, “that they would be capable of handling the silver with due care. It seems I was mistaken.”

Griff and Palmer turned up, in the passage behind Thomas, just in time to catch the end of this statement. “We’re taking a break,” Thomas told them, and pointed them toward the servants’ hall.

“We were being careful with the stuff, Sarge,” Palmer told him as they walked. 

“I’m sure you were,” Thomas said. It was the sort of thing Carson could make sting, if he said it, so Thomas added, “Don’t worry about it.” 

When they got to the servants’ hall, Ethel was pouring the lemonade—and Wiggins was sitting _in Carson’s chair_. Thomas had to fight not to boggle at him. It was a chair like any other, except for being at the head of the table, but no one in the house would have even dreamed of sitting in it, whether Carson was in the room or not. 

But Carson wasn’t in the room, and there was, in fact, no particular reason why Wiggins shouldn’t sit there. 

Daisy brought in a plate of biscuits and they all fell on them, voices overlapping as they compared the difficulty of their respective tasks. “Griff— _eyes front_ ,” Thomas snapped, as Ethel leaned over him to pour him some lemonade, and he turned his head to take in the view. 

“Sorry, Sarge.”

Since they’d all stopped talking for a moment, Thomas took the opportunity to say, “Should we switch up jobs after this? I’d say we’re about halfway done in the boot room.”

Unsurprisingly, Griffiths and Palmer were in favor of this change, the other three against it. “It’s a long walk up all them stairs, Sarge,” Palmer said. 

“Not to mention himself glaring at you like you’re about to pinch something,” Griffiths added. 

Ethel, who was still hanging about for some reason, said, “And have you seen anything you’d like to pinch?”

Thomas knew as well as Griff did that _her bottom_ was the expected answer, but a glare from him was enough to stop Griff from saying it. “Ethel, haven’t you got anything to do?” he asked. 

She scurried off, to Griff’s visible disappointment. “She carries on much worse than that, she’ll find herself sacked,” Thomas explained to Griffiths. “Best not lead her into temptation.”

“And we can smoke now,” Wiggins pointed out, taking out his cigarettes. 

Thomas nodded, getting out his own. “Mind you put the ashes in the ash-tray,” he warned, lighting up. “All right, so Cutter and White, you’ll work with Mr. Carson next. Wiggins has already been carting stuff all over creation,” but not dealing with Mr. Carson, “so he’ll stay where he is. Fair enough?”

#

The vent that could carry voices from Mrs. Hughes’s sitting room into the servants’ hall could just as easily do the reverse, and now it allowed her to hear Thomas sorting out a squabble among the Army men—none of them much enjoyed working under Mr. Carson, apparently—with what seemed to be practiced ease. She wondered a little at his choice to follow up his orders by asking if the men found them fair—wouldn’t that only encourage more grousing?—but the question was met only with murmurs of agreement. 

They moved on to talking about the mysteries of their day’s work, trading hints about the jobs that were being switched off from one pair of men to the other. The one with the London accent explained importantly to his fellows why the boot room was called the boot room—something it would never have occurred to Mrs. Hughes could be a mystery to anyone. Thomas did not, she noticed, correct him when he mixed up shooting with hunting, saying something about the boot room coming in handy “when the lords and ladies and all that have been tramping around hunting and come back with muddy boots.”

How different it had been, a few years ago, when William—then new to the house—had made the same mistake. Thomas had not only corrected it, but had gone on at quite some length, while William had sat there turning red as a pickled beet. 

It had been cruel, but if she was honest with herself, she didn’t have to look very far to see where he had learned it. If Mr. Carson had heard it, his correction would have been briefer than Thomas’s, but just as sharp. 

She wondered who he was imitating now.

#

Pacing up and down the downstairs corridor, Thomas heard his own name, in Mrs. Hughes’s voice, coming from behind the half-open door of the butler’s pantry. Right. They were probably wondering why he and half a dozen orderlies were standing around doing sod-all. 

Taking a deep breath, he knocked. 

“Yes?” Carson said.

“It’s Sergeant Barrow.” He still hadn’t told them not to call him _Thomas_ , but was using his proper title every chance he got, in hopes they’d take the hint. 

Muttering from inside, and then Mrs. Hughes said, “Come in.”

Thomas went. “The beds still aren’t here yet,” he reported. They’d been due hours ago, and Thomas had sent half his orderlies back to the hospital to help with the afternoon chores, keeping the rest cooling their heels in the courtyard so as to begin unloading the lorry immediately, if it ever turned up. “D’you want me to send the men back to their billets for their tea, or can we give it to them here? I checked with Mrs. Patmore, and she said it’ll stretch, if we don’t mind filling up on bread and butter.”

Mrs. Hughes and Carson exchanged a look. “I suppose if you send them away, that’ll be the moment the delivery turns up,” Mrs. Hughes said. “Best stay. We’ll all squeeze in round the servants’ hall table this once, if you don’t mind.”

Tomorrow, when the patients arrived, was to be the first day the orderlies ate in the breakfast room. Thomas nodded. “It’s not a full complement—I sent some of them back a while ago. There’s six left, plus me.”

“Good,” said Mrs. Hughes. “Then we’ll have plenty of room.” She and Carson exchanged another look. “While you’re here, you might take a look at this—I expect you’ll find it interesting.”

There were a couple of ledgers open on Carson’s desk—one he recognized as the book he’d found in the boot room a couple of days ago; the other was a red-covered wine ledger, from the middle of the last century. “What is it?” he asked.

It was Carson who answered. “It seems,” he said, “that Mr. Clemens—one of my predecessors—was _cooking the books_ , as I believe it is called.”

“Really?” Thomas asked, bending to look. 

Carson explained, “I’ve been comparing the two books. The official ledger shows the wines purchased, the price paid, where stored—all the usual things. The _other_ ledger shows a higher number of bottles purchased—I’ve matched the deliveries—and two sets of prices.” He paused dramatically. “Both _lower_ than the ones recorded in the official ledger.”

It took Thomas only a moment to work out the scheme. “The actual price paid, and the price he sold it for,” he said. Picking out a delivery in the boot-room book, and matching it to the corresponding one in the official one, he did a bit of mental arithmetic. “Yeah—I’d have to work it out on paper to be sure of it, but it looks like this column is what he paid out for each delivery—or, rather, what his lordship paid. If you multiply by the number of cases and add it all up, you’d get the same total in both books, I’m pretty sure. The only difference is how many cases it really bought, compared to how many he said it did.”

Both Mrs. Hughes and Carson were looking at him strangely.

Thomas briefly considered not explaining—let Carson go over the wine ledgers from the last few years before the war with a fine-toothed comb; he wouldn’t find anything. Thomas had only nicked a half a dozen bottles—well, certainly not more than a dozen—and he’d put them down as breakages. 

“When I was in France, the Wardmaster caught some blokes running the same sort of scam out of Pharmacy Stores,” he said. “When I was clerking for him, he showed me how it all worked. The trick is that if you’re in charge of reviewing the books, and you only pay attention to one number, then the bloke writing them knows he can do whatever he likes with the other numbers.”

“Precisely,” said Carson, with a smile. “I suspect that his lordship—the third Earl, it would have been—was only in the habit of comparing the total on the wine merchants’ invoices to that listed in the ledger.” He closed it, patting the cover as if to console it for having to conceal lies for over half a century. “He’d be unlikely to notice that the number of cases, and the prices per case, differed.”

Thomas nodded. “The blokes in Pharmacy Stores _thought_ that the Wardmaster would only check that the number of each item issued to us by the Depot matched the numbers drawn out by the various wards and departments. All he had to do was check those numbers against the inventories taken in the wards, and the whole thing was plain as day.” 

Carson shook his head sadly. “The Third Earl should have been more careful—but I expect he found it unthinkable that a _butler_ would perpetrate such a scheme.”

“Could be,” Thomas agreed, taking another squint at the book. “Wonder if he’s in the cemetery out back? You could dig him up and put him on trial, like Cromwell.”

“He wouldn’t be,” said Carson, regretfully. “He was only butler for a short time—and now we know why.”

“Then I suppose you’ll have to be satisfied with putting a bar sinister next to his name in the household diary,” Mrs. Hughes said. 

It was obvious she meant it as a joke, but Carson said, “I believe I shall.” 

It occurred to Thomas that Carson found this glimpse into the Abbey’s hidden history as fascinating as he did. If Carson hadn’t hated him, would they have found more things that they had in common? Were there other discoveries like this, that Carson could have shared with him, if he had wanted to? For a half-second, he almost thought about telling him about the pothooks. Instead, he said, “You were right—I did find that interesting.” 

Carson looked at him for a moment, then said, “You’d best inform Mrs. Patmore that we’ve half a dozen extra for tea.”

Right—what did Thomas expect him to say? “Yes, Mr. Carson.”

Despite what Mrs. Patmore had said about the bread and butter, the table looked amply spread when Thomas took his men in to tea. They trooped down to the far end of the table—Thomas had, by now, explained to Wiggins about Carson’s chair—and took places on either side. 

That left Thomas sitting at the foot, where he’d been looking straight at Carson the whole time. He briefly considered making somebody else move, but the Wardmaster had spoken more than once about not making your lads do anything you wouldn’t do. Thomas sat down, and glared at Carson’s empty chair. 

Wiggins started reaching for the bread that was in front of him, but stopped when Thomas shook his head. “We have to wait for Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes.”

Just then, the pair made their entrance, and everyone stood up. Thomas had forgotten to warn them about this ritual—in the Army, as a rule, you didn’t eat in the same mess with anybody you had to stand up for—but they followed his lead and stood up too. 

As they all sat back down again, Wiggins asked, “What did we do that for?”

“Everyone stands up when Mr. Carson comes in,” Thomas said. 

“What, every time?” Griff asked. 

Thomas hadn’t thought before about how strange that was. Military courtesies were generally observed in full the first time you saw a particular officer on a given day—that way, you weren’t popping up and down like jacks-in-the-box from dawn to dusk. At the hospital, they got it out of the way when they reported in for duty each morning. “Yes,” he said. 

“Do _we_ have to?” Wiggins asked, reaching again for the bread.

“No,” Thomas said, and at the far end of the table, Carson drew his breath in sharply. Keeping his eyes on his men, Thomas continued, “We don’t, technically, but if we’re in here where everyone else is doing it, we should.” 

Wiggins opened his mouth to say something else, but before he could, Carson snapped, “I beg your pardon, _Thomas_.”

Now Thomas looked at him. He was glowering at full strength, but Thomas didn’t flinch. “Sergeant Barrow, if you don’t mind, Mr. Carson. And I beg _your_ pardon, but I wasn’t speaking to you.”

Carson turned an incredulous look on Mrs. Hughes, who said quietly, “Well, he wasn’t.” Raising her voice and addressing Wiggins, she added, “I expect the ways of a house like this aren’t what you’re used to. What did you do before the war?”

She’d probably thought it a safe question, but Thomas already knew that Carson wouldn’t like Wiggins’s answer. 

“Oh, a bit of this and a bit of that,” he said vaguely. 

Mrs. Hughes’s expression grew a little fixed. “I see.”

Wiggins had been an infantryman before losing half of the fingers on his right hand to a malfunctioning Mills bomb, and had cheerfully admitted that he’d joined up because he needed the work. He made occasional reference to various forms of employment he’d held: unloading ships at the docks, selling fish from a cart, shining shoes, stints in factories making everything from baby-carriages to cigar-boxes. Since he was barely into his twenties, he could not possibly have held any of these jobs for very long. 

Thomas sometimes wondered what was going to happen to him after the war. 

Wiggins went on, “But you’re right, I’ve never even seen a house like this before. Never out of the Smoke, aside from the hop-picking, until they sent me to Wipers.”

The conversation limped along, mostly through Mrs. Hughes’s efforts, and near the end of the meal, they heard the unmistakable sound of a lorry pulling up, which allowed Thomas and his men to make a quick escape. Thomas sent Wiggins running to fetch the rest of the men, while he and the others made a start on unloading. 

The next morning, Zero Day, was barely-controlled chaos. They’d planned to have all the beds put together and in place the previous day, so that all they’d need to do before the patients arrived was make them up. But the delay in delivery had put them behind schedule, and so half of the orderlies and nurses reported in at dawn, to be joined by most of the other half once the morning chores at the hospital had been finished. 

One reason that Thomas had planned the work as he had, was so that they would be mostly finished with moving and assembling the beds by the time the nurses came up. All of the residents of the house—upstairs and down—would be appalled to see gently-bred young ladies taking on such heavy work, but the nurses themselves would be insulted to be considered incapable of it. 

Thomas had hoped to avoid the issue entirely, but now, faced with the choice of either _appearing_ to insult the young ladies or actually _doing_ so, he went for the former, assigning a mixed-sex team to each ward or group of bedrooms, and appointing team leaders based on relevant experience, without regard to sex or station. Thomas himself did not take charge of a team; instead, he spent the morning walking circuits around the house, checking in on each team in turn. They always had questions for him, and so it took well over an hour to make it the whole way round. 

About the time that the teams had settled in and were working smoothly, some of the downstairs lot turned up. Her ladyship had promised their help on Zero Day, for “all of those little things which come up at the last minute.” Several of them—Anna and Bates, Branson for some reason, Ethel for the obvious reason—had pronounced themselves eager to help, but Thomas had hoped not to actually _need_ them. For one thing, he didn’t expect even the keen ones to actually follow his orders, if he told them to do something they didn’t happen to want to. 

Behindhand as they were, though, Thomas had to be grateful for what he could get. He sent most of them to the Big Ward—formerly known as the drawing room. Nurse Crawley was team leader there, and they’d do what _she_ told them, right enough. 

The next time Thomas made it to the Big Ward, he found that several others of the family had accumulated in there. Lady Edith was sort of drifting around in Nurse Crawley’s wake, occasionally straightening a blanket or plumping a pillow, while Lady Grantham and Lady Mary stood watching. 

Thomas gave them a respectful sort of nod, and, feeling rather self-conscious, checked in with his team leader. “Everything going smoothly, Nurse Crawley?”

“We’ll be ready,” she said. “Branson and Private Timmons are bringing the rest of the mattresses, and then we’ll just have to make them up.”

He nodded. “Good.” He should say, he knew, exactly what he would have said if Lady Grantham wasn’t standing here watching him _talk to Lady Sybil like he was her equal_. But what in hell was that? He could barely remember how words worked. “Do you have enough people?” 

“Plenty,” she said dryly. At that moment, Anna and Ethel came in, carrying stacks of linens. Nurse Crawley went to take them from them, saying, “Edith, help me with these—we’ll just make a pile for each bed.”

Anna, halfway out the door—presumably to get more linens—turned her head to look sharply at him.

Thomas raised an eyebrow. _What_? It wasn’t as though _he’d_ been the one to put Lady Edith to work. 

Going over to Lady Grantham, he braced up in front of her for a moment—he’d learned that there was no point waiting for her to release him—and said, “My lady, I’ve just been round to all the wards, and everything’s on track to be ready when the officers arrive.”

“Good,” she said. “I’m sure it’s all very complicated. Are the servants being helpful?”

“They are, my lady. Thank you. With the delay yesterday, it’s especially helpful to have the extra help.” _The help is helpful? You don’t say. Idiot._

“Yes, did you ever find out what _happened_ yesterday? Weren’t they supposed to bring the beds at mid-day?”

“Yes, my lady. The short version is that they got lost.” She continued looking at him expectantly, so Thomas continued, “The driver and his assistant were London men, not used to country lanes. They missed a turning, and by the time they realized something wasn’t right, they were far enough away that they had a hard time finding anyone who knew where Downton was.” 

“How frustrating,” she said. “I’d have thought they could find a place to telephone, at least.”

“They appeared to be under the impression that Yorkshire was too remote for the telephone to have reached us, my lady.” What they had actually said was something like _How were we to know you’ve got telly-phones, here in the back of beyond, when you ain’t even got fucking_ signposts _?_

“Well,” she said, “at least they found us eventually.”

Just then, Carson loomed up in the doorway and announced, “Mrs. Crawley, my lady.” 

“Good morning,” Sister Crawley said brightly. “We’ve everything under control at the hospital, so I came up to see how I can help.”

“We’ve everything under control here, too,” Lady Grantham said. “Don’t we, Sergeant Barrow?”

“Yes, my lady,” Thomas said. But they could hardly demand that Sister Crawley shove off when everyone else, down to the _chauffeur_ was pitching in, so he quickly ran through the list of things needing to be done, trying to find something that could be thrown to her as a sop, without getting Lady Grantham’s back up. The next thing _he_ had to do was check with Mrs. Patmore about the staff luncheon and the patients’ tea, but he couldn’t have Sister Crawely take that off his plate, or even accompany him while he did it—Lady Grantham didn’t like her butting in with the servants. 

She was the most qualified person on _Earth_ to get Lady Mary and Lady Edith to either do some actual work or get out of the way, but Lady Grantham wouldn’t like that, either. Nor could he suggest that Lady Grantham take the Ward-Sister somewhere and give her a cup of tea and tell her how things were coming along, because that would suggest that it was, somehow, the Ward-Sister’s business. 

“Thomas!” Carson hissed. 

Thinking it had to be some sort of disaster, for Carson to interrupt a conversation her ladyship was having, Thomas gave the two ladies a quick nod, mouthed “Pardon me,” and went over to the doorway, where Carson was standing. “What now?”

“Don’t you have _work_ to be doing?”

Thomas stared at him. Of course he fucking well did; he was _doing_ it. “Don’t you?”

He went back to the ladies, finding Sister Crawley saying, “—only thought, that as you have no _medical_ qualifications, you would appreciate my help.”

That was the gloves come off, and no mistake. Lady Grantham responded in kind. “I do not need medical qualifications to prepare this house to welcome guests.”

“Guests with _medical needs_ ,” Sister Crawley said.

Lady Grantham shot a glance his way, and Thomas said, “Sister Crawley, if you aren’t needed back at the hospital just yet, perhaps you could go around and check on the nurses—in case any questions or concerns have arisen that they don’t feel comfortable bringing to me.” Thomas had no idea what those might be, but they could very well exist—and, more importantly, the nurses’ welfare was the only really legitimate reason she had for being here.

“Certainly, I can,” she said. “I’ll need to be back to the hospital when we begin moving the patients, but not until then.” With a haughty look at Lady Grantham, she sailed off.

Lady Grantham sighed. “I don’t suppose you could have some up with something that wouldn’t give her free rein of the entire house?”

“Not on the spur of the moment, my lady. And the nurses _do_ fall within her area of responsibility.” 

“I suppose we must have nurses,” Lady Grantham said with a sigh.

Going down to the kitchen, Thomas found the new kitchen helpers busily working, while Mrs. Patmore and Daisy stood by the worktable with Mrs. Hughes and Carson, looking at a letter. Seeing Thomas, Daisy explained, “It’s from William. He’s getting a bit of leave before they send him to France.”

Already? It seemed to Thomas as though William had just left. “He’ll be going home, I expect.” 

“Yes, but he wants to come here for his last night,” she said. 

“You won’t mind that,” Mrs. Hughes informed Carson. 

Carson didn’t buck at it, either. “On the contrary, I’ll be glad to wish him well.” 

“Blimey,” Thomas found himself saying. “If I’d known you felt that way, I might have taken embarkation leave.”

Carson glowered, but did not actually say out loud that he had no interest whatsoever in wishing Thomas well. 

Mrs. Hughes said, mildly, “You could have,” and Thomas almost believed her. 

One o’clock—Zero Hour minus 3—was the first orderlies’ lunch in the breakfast room. Thomas was a few minutes late for it; he’d been checking with Nurse Crawley that everything had gone smoothly with the first seating. It wouldn’t matter, though—they’d agreed that the kitchen helpers would put everything on the sideboard, for people to help themselves. 

But when he went in, Wiggins said, “Hut!” and they all stopped what they were doing and braced up. 

Unable to tell whether they were taking the piss, or genuinely thought that this gesture was an appropriate way to mark the importance of the day, Thomas simply nodded to them and said, “As you were.”

As he was filling his plate at the sideboard, Wiggins sidled up to him. “I didn’t think we had better wait for you, since we don’t have much time,” he explained.

“You were right,” Thomas told him. Possibly they did really mean it, then. “Thanks.”

Standing by the sideboard in the breakfast room was well within Thomas’s experience—he’d done it hundreds of times—but carrying a plate over to the table and sitting down was not. He only felt more self-conscious when he realized the place that the others had left for him was at the head of the table. Where Lord Grantham normally sat. 

No bolt of lightning appeared to strike him dead when he sat down in it, so Thomas applied himself to the ham and potatoes.

Gradually, he became aware of the conversation along the length of the table. “—seen him yet?” someone asked.

“No.”

“Nor me.”

“I got a glimpse, as ‘e was going to the car, but not enough to make him out.”

“Who are you talking about?” Thomas asked.

“His Lord Colonelship,” Wiggins said. 

“Don’t call him _that_ , either,” Thomas said. “He’s Colonel Grantham. And why does it matter if you’ve seen him or not?”

“Never saw an Earl up close before,” Franklin said. There were murmurs of agreement on this point.

 _So what_? “He looks like anyone else,” Thomas said. 

“What if we see him and we don’t know it’s him?” Wiggins asked.

“You’ll know he’s a Colonel, from his uniform,” Thomas reminded him. “And when he’s in uniform, he gets called ‘sir,’ same as any officer.” 

“We could mistake him for a patient,” Palmer pointed out.

Griff nodded. “That would be pretty embarrassing—ask him if he needs help finding anything, in his own ‘ouse.” 

Thomas hadn’t thought of that. In the scheme of things, it didn’t matter, but he’d still be mortified, if it was him. “He and Lady Grantham and the young ladies will all be in the front hall to greet the first patients as they arrive,” he said. “You can have a look at them then, but don’t gawp.”

But the men weren’t entire pleased with this solution—many of them would be posted somewhere in the far reaches of the house at Zero Hour, with no excuse to wander into the front hall—so after lunch, Thomas went into the library-turned-recreation-room, and pretended to be adjusting the screens that partitioned it off from the small library, reserved for the family. 

Since they were already correctly placed, it took a bit of finesse to “accidentally” catch a glimpse of Colonel Grantham, sitting in the small library and attempting to read a newspaper, though every few moments he looked up from it to glare in irritation at some sound coming from one of the other rooms.

Thomas managed to time things so that he “noticed” he was in Colonel Grantham’s presence while the Colonel was looking his way. He braced up, which more-or-less forced his lordship to acknowledge him, even if just to say, “As you were,” which he did. 

“As you were” was not an invitation to intrude on the officer’s time—in fact, it was damn near the exact opposite—but Thomas stretched the point enough to say, “Quite a busy day, sir.”

“Yes,” Colonel Grantham said, a little tersely, and made a bit of a show of returning his attention to his newspaper.

Thomas hesitated, wondering whether he ought to try again. He had just about concluded that no, he should not, when Colonel Grantham lowered the paper again and said, “Is there something you want, Sergeant?”

Right now, Thomas wanted to have referred this matter to Bates, as would clearly have been the intelligent move. But here he was, and the officer had just asked him a question, so he said, “Since you ask, sir, I’d been meaning to ask if you’d be willing to, er, review the troops.”

Colonel Grantham frowned. “You mean the orderlies?”

“Yes, sir. They know you’re not involved in the running of the convalescent home, but it doesn’t seem quite right not to acknowledge the ranking officer present.” 

Thomas was fairly pleased with himself for coming up with that way of formulating it, and Colonel Grantham’s answering, “Hm!” seemed pleased as well. 

Encouraged, Thomas added, “They’re all a bit in awe of you. The house, and the title, and all of it, it’s a bit intimidating, sir.” 

“Well, if it would help,” Colonel Grantham said modestly, “then of course I shall. Today? I don’t want to take them away from their work.”

“Kind of you to think of it, sir. We’re assembling out front at 3 o’clock sharp, for inspection and final instructions. If it’d be convenient for you to step outside at a few minutes’ past….”

“Fine,” Colonel Grantham said. 

“Thank you, sir.”

He nodded. “Dismissed.”

Thomas went off to spread the news among his men—who received it, as he’d expected, with a mixture of anxiety and anticipation.

#

Folding the newspaper back up, Robert glanced at the time and realized it was about time for him to get ready. If he was inspecting soldiers—even on an impromptu basis—he owed them the courtesy of making sure his own uniform was shipshape. Bates would want to give it a brushing, if nothing else.

Getting up, he went for the bell-pull, which was near the screens that divided the small library from the large library, and he heard men’s voices from the other side. 

“—still say it’s a dirty trick springing a Colonel on us when it was only supposed to be ‘im.”

He couldn’t help having overheard that much, but the gentlemanly thing to do would be to go back to his seat and stop listening. But it was obvious enough what they were talking about, and Robert managed to convince himself that, as ranking officer present, it was his business to know what the men thought of their Sergeant. 

“Nah, you don’t know him yet,” another man said. “He’d not do that.”

“And you do?” a third voice asked.

The second voice said, “’e’s a closed book, and no mistake, but ‘e’s fair.”

The third voice added, “We’re supposed to have a hundred and some officers looking at us at four o’clock—what difference does it make if one more looks at us at three? Bet he didn’t think it was any big thing, ‘cause he knows we’re ready.” 

There was a pause, and the first voice said, “I’m gonna go put a bit of shine on my boots.”

“Probably not a bad idea,” the third voice said.

Then a voice came from behind him—Cora’s, saying, “—in here, before they arrive. That way, we can all be on hand to welcome them.”

Robert turned to see his wife entering the room, alongside Carson, who said, “Very good, my lady.”

“And the wretched soldiers will have to make do with urn tea today,” she went on, then shifted her attention to Robert for a moment, and said, “We’re having tea early today, dear—quarter past three.”

Robert nodded. “I may be a little late. I’m reviewing the troops –Thomas’s orderlies—at five minutes past.”

She frowned a little. “Why are you doing that?”

“I’m not entirely sure, but Thomas took some pains to flatter me into agreeing to do it, so I expect he has a reason,” Robert said wryly, and added, “Carson, send Bates up to my dressing room. We’d best give my uniform a once-over.”

“Yes, my lord,” Carson said. “My lady?”

She picked up her train of thought. “Urn tea, so the ones who are able can help themselves as they get settled. The nurses will take it to the bed-cases, and Lady Mary, Lady Edith, and I will take turns presiding over the tea table.”

“Very good, my lady,” Carson said, and withdrew. 

Cora kissed him on the cheek and said, “I’m glad you’re taking an interest, dear, but don’t keep the ‘troops’ too long. I’m sure they have plenty to do.”

#

“Sergeant Barrow?” Nurse Crawley peered between the stacks of linen, on the shelf that separated Thomas’s “office” from the rest of the room. “Do you have a minute?”

All Thomas was doing was smoking a cigarette and drinking a cup of tea, so he pretty much had to say, “Yes.” He resisted the impulse to put out the cigarette as Nurse Crawley circled around the shelves to join him—this was his office; he’d smoke in it if he liked, no matter who was there. “What’s happened now?”

“Oh,” she said. “Nothing. Well—nothing yet. I just thought you might know the answer to a question I had.”

“All right,” Thomas said, tapping ash into a saucer. “Shoot.”

She took a deep breath. “What would the Army do to a man who refused to do as he was told?”

Who could she be talking about? The “unsuitable” person, perhaps? “Depends,” Thomas said, thinking of Diggs, and that night at the Front when he’d refused to go out after Lamb. “If it’s in the presence of the enemy, he could be shot.” She gasped, and he hastened to continue, “I don’t think they do that very often. The two cases I know of, where it could have happened, the one got off with summary punishment, and the other…wasn’t well, and he was due to be invalided out anyway, so they looked the other way.”

She breathed a little easier. “What if it weren’t in the presence of the enemy? In training camp, say?”

“Depends on the order, probably, and what kind of impression he made otherwise.” Thomas thought back to training camp. “We had one or two kick at being told to do something they thought was beneath them, for instance. They wound up doing an extra work detail on top of the original one, but they fell into line after that and it wasn’t held against them. If it was over something important, or if the man had a habit of making trouble, they might come down harder. Field punishment, confinement to barracks, docking pay, that sort of thing.”

She bit her lip. “What if he did make a habit of it? I mean, if it wasn’t just one order—he refused to follow any of them? And if he didn’t want it to be kept quiet.”

“You mean a conchie.” Why hadn’t she said that to begin with?

She nodded quickly. “They send them to prison, don’t they?”

“Usually. I’ve heard of them taking the particularly vocal ones over to France. Putting them on field punishment and work details as close to the line as they can get them.” Which was saying something, Thomas thought, if an ordinary prison wasn’t bad enough to stop men from choosing it over fighting. 

“Oh,” said Nurse Crawley, looking perturbed. “I suppose someone…wanting to make the papers, would count as particularly vocal?”

“Probably,” Thomas agreed. “It’d make a difference, too, who he had pulling strings on his behalf.” A friend of Lady Sybil’s was likely to have access to a pretty considerable collection of strings—but a friend of _Nurse Crawley’s_ could well be a different story. “If it’s killing he objects to, and he’s got strings to pull, I’d recommend he try for the RAMC. We had a conscientious objector in our unit in France—a Quaker. He was all right. It’s rough work—a lot rougher over there than it is here—but you’re saving lives instead of taking them.”

She sighed. “I don’t think that would help. He doesn’t approve of military authority in general. Or the war, or conscription, or…the monarchy.” She mumbled the last word. 

“Blimey,” Thomas said. “Then he’s in for a rough time of it. I’d say the only thing you can do is try to convince him to keep his head down and get through the war without making waves—it can’t go on too much longer, once the Yanks get here, and then once it’s over, he can get back to rabble-rousing. You know—live to fight another day, rather than throw everything away on a pointless gesture that’ll get covered up anyway. He might buy it.” 

“He might,” she said doubtfully, getting up from the armchair she had ensconced herself in. “Thank you—I’m sure you’re quite busy.”

He was, and after finishing his cigarette, giving his uniform a quick brushing, and collecting his cap, he made a quick walk through the wards, noting what still needed to be done—nothing essential, fortunately. 

In the Big Ward, he found Lady Edith doing some more aimless drifting about. “Sergeant,” she said, catching his eye. “Perhaps you can help. Cousin Isobel told me there was a great deal to be done and to make myself useful, but she raced off before I could ask what.” 

“Ah,” Thomas said, running through the list of things to be done in search of something that Sister Crawley might conceivably have thought that Lady Edith ought to do. “Well, there’s the water glasses and jugs to be put out,” he said. That was easy enough that anyone could do it, and involved nothing disagreeable. “Here and in the East and West wards—the music room and smoking room, that is.” 

She nodded quickly. “Where will I find them?” 

“I’ll show you,” Thomas said. As he led the way to where they’d been stacked in the front hall, he had another idea. “Once the patients start arriving, my lady, the most important thing you can do to help is keep an eye out for anyone looking like he’s a bit overwhelmed.” One skill Lady Edith ought to have, after being trained up from birth as a Society hostess, was making guests feel welcome. 

“Of course,” Lady Edith said, her tone a bit doubtful. 

Thomas continued, “It can feel very impersonal, being shipped from one place to another by the Army. Many of them will feel a lot better for somebody taking an interest, but with all of them turning up at once, the medical personnel will need to focus on, well, medical things. We’ll get round to everybody eventually, but in the meantime….” 

“I see,” she said. “I suppose it must be a bit like being the parcel in a game of pass-the-parcel. Certainly, I’ll do what I can. I can at least answer questions about the house and grounds, if nothing else.”

“Very good, my lady.” They had by now reached the crates of water glasses, so Thomas indicated them. “And here are these, if you’d like to put them out. Two glasses and one jug on each bedside table.”

“I’m sure I can manage that. Thank you, Sergeant.”

As she began putting the glasses onto a wooden tray, Thomas noticed Carson glaring at him. Well, he’d glare even more when he saw what Thomas was about to do next, which was going out the front door to review his men. 

He was pleased to see that they were all lined up more or less neatly, chatting quietly amongst themselves, and braced up and shut up when they caught sight of him. He walked down the row, looking at them each in turn, finding each one neat as a pin. “Very good,” he said, taking up a position where he could look at them while also watching the front door out of the corner of his eye, so he’d know when Colonel Grantham came out. “As you know, we’re at Zero Hour minus one, so now’s the time to be checking if everything’s ready. For instance, when I was up there a few minutes ago, the beds in the last room on the east corridor still weren’t made up. Are they now?”

There was a sort of embarrassed pause, and finally White—who was team leader for that area—said, “No, Sergeant.”

“Then I hope you know what you’re doing immediately after this,” Thomas said. Turning to another man, he said, “I think it would be better to put the urinals in the bedside cupboards, rather than leaving them out in plain view. What do you think, Parker?”

“Uh, yes, Sergeant.” 

A few more things like that, and Thomas saw the front door starting to open. He watched just long enough to make sure it really was Colonel Grantham coming out, then turned round so he was facing the same way as his men and said, “Hut!” 

Colonel Grantham approached.

“Eyes left!”

They saluted. Colonel Grantham returned the salute, and they returned to the position of “attention.” He walked up the row, much as Thomas had done—though perhaps slightly more perfunctorily—before telling them to stand easy, and making a few anodyne remarks about “How much her ladyship and I appreciate all the work you’ve been doing to prepare the convalescent home and to care for the men who have been wounded in service to our country.”

Once he’d finished with that, they all saluted again, and Colonel Grantham went back inside. Thomas waited until the door had closed behind him before saying, “There, now you’ve all seen him—I hope you’re happy.”

He went on to tell everyone their assignments for the rest of the afternoon—some on their assigned wards and corridors, to get the patients settled when they got there, some out front to help the patients out of the ambulances and charabancs that were bringing them. “Everyone except the severe cases in the East Ward should be able to get where they’re going under their own steam, but they might not be able to manage their bags. Tell them they can leave anything they can’t carry out here and it’ll be brought to them later. If I have use of the footman and hall-boy, I’ll get them to do that, but if not, you’ll have to come and fetch it once you’ve got all your patients settled.”

He looked for nods of agreement, and once he’d got them, continued, “If you think that any of your patients have been misclassified as to severity, just settle them in for now, if you possibly can. Unless it’s impossible to get them to their assigned place, or they need to be seen by an MO right away—which none of them should—you can tell me about it once we’re done with the rush.” 

More nods. Thomas glanced quickly at the front door—still closed—before saying, “Finally, the family are going to be out and about, welcoming the patients. Work around them as best you can. Don’t ask them to get out of the way unless there’s no other choice, and if you have to, you want to say something like, ‘begging your pardon, my lady, but I need to get,’ whatever it is they’re standing in front of. Don’t actually tell them to shift it.” 

They all tried not to laugh at that—since they were, technically, on parade. “All right, let’s get back inside and back to work.”

They trooped in, with Thomas bringing up the rear. Carson was standing just inside the door, glowering at them all as they passed. Thomas was tempted to just walk on by, as the others were, but reminded himself that he’d been chosen for this job because of his tact—of all things—and paused to say, “Everything all right, Mr. Carson?”

“Why are you coming in this way?” he demanded. 

Wiggins, near the tail end of the group, turned to look back at them. Thomas gestured him on his way. “Because we’re medical staff, not servants. Or had you forgotten?”

Instead of answer the question, Carson said, “And I suppose you think it’s clever, getting not only Lady Sybil, but Lady Edith and his lordship to do your bidding?”

Thomas stared at him. He had an idea of what he was on about with Lady Edith, but his lordship? “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about, Mr. Carson. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot to do.” He started to walk away.

“Thomas!”

“Sergeant Barrow,” he said, without slowing, or turning to see if Carson would do anything as undignified as chase after him.

He didn’t. Thomas left his cap in his office and considered whether he had time for a cigarette before going to give the nurses _their_ final instructions. 

Not really, he decided with regret, and went to give the recreation room a once-over. Straightening the newspapers, which happened to be on a table near the screen which separated the recreation room from the family’s library, he heard his lordship saying, “No, they looked rather smart. I suppose they drill them, just like proper soldiers.”

Lady Grantham, her voice low and quick, said, “As a matter of fact, several of them were transferred into the RAMC after being wounded.” 

“I’m sorry,” Colonel Grantham said. “It was wrong of me to say that. I suppose I….”

Thomas moved away from the screens before he could overhear anything more, and occupied himself with straightening the stacks of board games and playing cards, instead, until it was time to go to the Big Ward and speak to the nurses.

When he got there, he found Sister Crawley standing in front of them, clipboard in hand. “—and Nurse ffinch-Browne, you’ll stand at the top of the stairs and direct the men to the rooms on the second floor. I’ll give you a list.” By the time she’d gotten to the end of this statement, most of the assembly had transferred their attention from her to Thomas. She half-turned and said, “Oh, Sergeant Barrow. I hope you don’t mind—we got started without you.”

“I see,” Thomas said flatly. He supposed he should have expected this. She steamrollered everyone else; why should she hold back from doing it to him, just because his authority over the nurses was a house of cards precariously balanced on equal parts obfuscation and goodwill? “Unfortunately, I’ve drawn up my own duty roster for the afternoon, and as mine includes the orderlies and household staff as well as the nurses—”

“Oh, I’ve done those, as well!” she said, and shuffled through the papers on her clipboard. 

“Thank you,” he said—almost sincerely, because that overreach on her part would make it a lot easier for him to justifying overruling her instructions to the nurses. “But I wish you had asked, because you needn’t have gone to the trouble. Nurse ffinch-Browne, Mr. Bates will be at the top of the stairs directing traffic, since he’s familiar with the house and isn’t quick on stairs. I think you’d be more useful helping to unload the patients out front, along with Nurse Willoughby and Nurse Campbell.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sister Crawley open her mouth and close it again a few times. But he just kept on telling them their “recommendations,” and then rolled straight into giving them the same instructions he’d given the orderlies—apart from the bit about not telling the family to shift it—without giving her the space to fit a word in edgewise. 

He thought she’d jump in when he reached the end, and asked the nurses if they had any questions, but she actually kept quiet long enough for them to ask a few questions and, even more surprisingly, allowed him to answer them. 

When the others had left, she turned to him and said in an injured tone, “I hope you know I was only trying to help.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Thomas said. “I had understood that I was to handle the day-to-day organization of the convalescent home staff. Was I mistaken?”

“No, but….”

“If you’d like to reconsider the arrangements, I’ll be happy to do that, but I don’t think that half an hour before the patients are due to arrive is the best time.” 

“No, of course it isn’t, and I don’t think we need to reconsider the arrangement—at least not until we’ve had a chance to see how it’s working out. I only thought….”

“Yes, ma’am?” Thomas prompted, when it began to seem unlikely that she’d finish the thought otherwise.

“I thought it would be helpful,” she said briskly, “but it seems I was mistaken. I’ll get out of your way.”

She smiled wanly, and Thomas had the distinct impression that he was supposed to tell her she wasn’t in the way at all. But she was, so he didn’t. Her smile grew ever more fixed, and eventually she left. 

And not a moment too soon. Thomas raced downstairs to give instructions to those of the servants who had chosen to assemble for that purpose, and then the invasion began. 

The first lot of officers to arrive was a charabanc-full from their own hospital. Having had only a short journey and already being known to the staff, they didn’t take much settling in—but on the other hand, having anticipated this move for the past several weeks, and not being tired from the journey, many of them were keen to start exploring the house immediately. 

Hard on their heels came a charabanc and two ambulances from York. After a journey of nearly two hours, many of the gentlemen on board found themselves in need of tea, lavatories, cigarettes, drinks of water, pain medicine, and people to complain to. 

There were also the predictable sort of mix-ups, the most egregious of which was a Captain Billings who was on Thomas’s list as “ambulatory,” and so had been placed in the bachelor corridor upstairs, but who turned out to have no legs. Fortunately, he was of a mind to see the humor in the situation, and pronounced himself entirely happy to sit on the terrace in a Bath chair until the problem could be sorted out, as long as someone brought him his tea when they had a spare moment.

Courtenay came with the second group from the village hospital—they’d naively hoped that the chaos would have died down by then, making it easier for him to adjust to his new surroundings. It hadn’t, and Thomas apologized as he personally took him in to his place in the intermediaries ward. 

“It’s all right,” Courtenay said, looking a bit overwhelmed, as they wove their way among the tables and knots of people in the main hall. “I expect everyone’s a bit excited by the move,” he added, as a group across the way laughed uproariously. 

“I’m afraid so—everyone who’s able is having a look round. We’ll be turning to the left in two more steps,” he added. They negotiated the turn, and Thomas went on, “You’re in the West Ward, which is the music room in civilian life, toward the back of the house. There are rows of six beds on either side of a center aisle, heads against the walls. I have you in the first bed on the right, which is straight ahead.” He guided Courtenay to sit on it. “Your bedside table is here on your left, between the bed and the wall—most of the gents have got to share with the next man over, but I figured it’d be easier if you didn’t have to worry about your things getting moved or mixed up with someone else’s.”

“Thank you,” Courtenay said, shifting to explore the table with his hands. 

Thomas went on orienting him to the space, telling him which of the other men in the ward he knew from the hospital, and where the nearest lavatory was, and so forth, concluding “Tea’s laid on in the main hall, where we just were, but I’ll bring you something here if you’d like.” 

“That might be best,” Courtenay said. “I’ll start learning my way around once things are a bit more settled.” 

Thomas trotted out to the main hall, and was fixing a plate with a couple of sandwiches and some biscuits when Anna came rushing up to him. “Thomas, there you are. Some gentlemen are having a disagreement over the bathroom in the bachelor corridor.”

 _Damn it_. That was the sort of thing he had to handle himself. “Right,” he said, shoving the plate into Anna’s hands. “Can you take that and a cup of tea to Lieutenant Courtenay? Blind chap in the music room.”

“Of course, but how should I—”

Shouting from upstairs. “Thanks,” Thomas said, and raced off.

#

Nervously, Anna paused in the doorway to the music room. She was glad to be getting a look at Thomas’s Lieutenant, but she’d never had much to do with anyone blind before, apart from an elderly relative of a childhood friend, who’d sat by the fire knitting endlessly, occasionally pausing to croak out “Who’s there?”

Well, she supposed, that was something to go on—she’d start by announcing herself. “Lieutenant Courtenay?” she said.

“Here,” said the slender, curly-haired young man sitting on the bed opposite the door. She realized when she saw him that she’d been imagining someone older. He couldn’t be much more than twenty, and handsome in a boyish sort of way. 

“My name’s Anna; I’m a housemaid,” she said. “Thomas—Sergeant Barrow, I mean—was called away, so he asked me to bring your tea in.” 

“Oh,” he said. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be any trouble.”

“No trouble, sir,” she said, wishing the ones quarrelling over who got to have a bath first minded whether or not they caused trouble. “Where would you like me to put the tray?”

“On my lap’s easiest,” he said, uncrossing his legs. “Thanks,” he added, as she put it where indicated. “I gather from Barrow that things are at sixes and sevens today?” he asked, running his hands over the tray—to figure out what was on it, she supposed. 

“A bit,” she said. “Thomas—Sergeant Barrow—had everything arranged with military precision, but of course….”

“No plan survives engagement with the enemy,” he filled in, giving her an engaging grin. “He’s very efficient, Barrow. I gather he worked here before the war?”

“He did,” she said. “He was a footman—first footman,” she added, hoping Thomas hadn’t been tempted to exaggerate. 

“Doesn’t seem like it would provide much scope for his talents,” Courtenay noted, picking up a cucumber sandwich. “Do you know if he—”

“Anna!” Mrs. Hughes said sharply, from behind her. 

“Will there be anything else, Lieutenant?” she asked. 

“No, don’t let me keep you.” 

She joined Mrs. Hughes, who led the way toward the servants’ stairs, scolding, “I wouldn’t have thought _you_ were the one I needed to watch around the men.”

Once they’d passed behind the green baize door, Anna confided, “That was Lieutenant Courtenay. The one Thomas….”

Mrs. Hughes paused on the landing and turned to look at her. “Oh?”

“Thomas was taking him in his tea, but he had to go and deal with something else, so he asked me to do it,” she explained. 

“Well,” Mrs. Hughes said, continuing down the steps, “now I wish I’d taken a better look.”

“He seems nice,” she said. “And Lady Sybil likes him as well.” 

Mrs. Hughes stopped to look at her again. 

“Apparently, she told him she considers them warm friends,” she added. 

“Thank heavens for that,” Mrs. Hughes said. “That would be the last thing we need.”

Anna reminded herself that Mrs. Hughes did not know, and could never know, about the Duke of Crowborough, and the fact that Thomas being interested in the same man as one of the Crawley girls would not be an unprecedented situation. 

Fortunately, when they reached the bottom of the stairs, Mrs. Hughes changed the subject. “In any case, I was looking for you because I need you and Ethel to lay the nurses’ tea in the breakfast room. The kitchen is behind schedule, and now Mr. Matthew has turned up, so….”

#

Thomas held out some hope of being able to go in and collect Courtenay’s tea-tray once he’d settled the bathroom argument, but instead he was dragged into several other miniature crises, and then summoned to the small library, where Major Clarkson and Lady Grantham were discussing how opening day had gone. Sister Crawley was there, too, and Thomas suspected that it was her presence that had led them to send for him. 

“—may need to take stronger measures,” Clarkson was saying, “but I’ll begin by making an announcement before dinner. All of the ambulatory patients should be there. Sergeant Barrow,” he added, as Thomas approached. “Instruct the orderlies and nurses to keep an eye out for any patients straying into areas set aside for the family.”

“Yes, sir,” Thomas said. That was one problem he hadn’t heard about yet. “Has there been much of that?” More importantly, what could they do about it? Signs would help, but Carson—not to mention the Dowager, and probably some other members of the family—would object to putting up signs as though Downton were a _hotel_ or something. Same with velvet ropes. If there were any particular trouble spots, he could, as a last resort, position an orderly to keep watch…

“Not a great deal,” Lady Grantham said. “But any is too much.”

“Of course it is, my lady.” Bit too early to start thinking of such drastic measures as _signs_ , then. 

Sister Crawley said, “Surely you can’t blame—”

Major Clarkson spoke over her, saying, “This being the first day, I think we can safely suppose that the officers in question were confused about which parts of the house are off-limits.”

“I hope that’s all it is,” Lady Grantham said. “And perhaps you could also remind them that they are in a home and not a barracks, and to adjust their _language_ accordingly.”

“Certainly,” Major Clarkson said. 

Lady Grantham was in the middle of raising the delicate issue of patients bothering the maids, when Lady Mary sailed in. “I’m sorry, I am interrupting something?”

“We’re just discussing the arrangements,” Sister Crawley chirped. 

“Oh, good,” Lady Mary said. “Because we’ve just had a letter from Evelyn Napier. He’s in a hospital in Middlesborough, and he’s heard that we’re a convalescent home now, and wonders if he can come here once he’s released.”

“Of course he can come here,” said Lady Grantham.

At almost the same instant, Sister Crawley said, “There’s no question of him coming here.” 

Oh, God. Thomas earnestly wished that he had been interrupted on his way here by, say, a fistfight among the patients. Or an outbreak of vomiting. Anything.

As Sister Crawley explained that the Middlesborough hospital would have its own arrangements, Lady Grantham looked more and more incredulous, glancing back and forth between Thomas and Major Clarkson as though wondering why one of them wasn’t stopping her.

When Major Clarkson finally did intervene, he said, “I’m afraid Mrs. Crawley is right. Middlesborough is in a different administrative area. It’s simply not possible.”

“I beg your pardon,” Lady Grantham said, her voice low and quick. “But this is my house and I will invite anyone I choose.”

This might not be quite as tricky as Thomas had thought—they were coming at the thing from different angles. When Major Clarkson sent a commanding glance his way, he was ready. “My lady, I think what Major Clarkson is saying is that the War Office is unlikely to allocate Mr. Napier—I’m sorry; I don’t know his rank—to us as a patient. And we do have to keep the convalescent home beds for the patients who are sent to us officially.” 

Lady Grantham prepared to say something, and Thomas hurried on, so as not to _actually_ interrupt her. “But of course we wouldn’t dream of telling you whom you can and cannot invite to stay in the rooms that have been reserved for the family’s guests.”

Major Clarkson, now pointed in the right direction, jumped in. “Precisely. Certainly you can invite Mr. Napier, or anyone you like. But seeing as he’s under military authority, he may not be free to accept.”

“That’s entirely ridiculous,” Lady Mary said. “This is a military convalescent home. Why wouldn’t they permit him to come here?”

Major Clarkson looked inquiringly at Thomas, who shook his head slightly. It wasn’t worth trying to explain. Major Clarkson said, “Perhaps they will, but I’m afraid it’s not a matter over which I have any influence, since he isn’t my patient.” 

“I see,” said Lady Grantham, looking somewhat—though not entirely—mollified. “But if _he_ can arrange it, you’ll have no objection?”

“No objection at all,” said Major Clarkson, his expression similar to Lady Grantham’s.

“What about his nursing care?” Sister Crawley said. “The medical staff can’t be expected to look after personal guests.” 

Major Clarkson looked at Thomas, who answered, “I think we can manage one extra, sir, as a courtesy to the family. If he isn’t ambulatory, or for some other reason needs more care than most, it might be a bit difficult, but not otherwise.”

Lady Mary consulted the letter she was holding. “He’s recovering from pneumonia. I trust that isn’t too difficult?”

“Not at all, my lady,” Thomas told her, half-truthfully. Acute pneumonia patients _could_ take a lot of nursing, but the hospital shouldn’t release Napier until he was on the mend. 

“Then I’ll write back and tell him we’ll be glad to have him, but he’s got to wangle it on his own,” Lady Mary said. 

Major Clarkson added, “If his doctors have any questions about the care he can expect here, I’ll be happy to answer them.”

The meeting broke up shortly after that, with Major Clarkson telling Thomas to accompany him on a walk round the wards. Sister Crawley attempted to join them, and as they went into the main hall, Major Clarkson asked her, “Has Captain Crawley left yet?”

“Oh, yes—about half an hour ago,” she said brightly.

Thomas had no idea that Captain Crawley had ever been here, but guessed that Major Clarkson had been hoping to use him as an excuse to get rid of Sister Crawley. Major Clarkson rose another notch in Thomas’s estimation when he continued without a hitch, “Good. I wouldn’t have wanted to keep you from seeing him off, but since you’re free, you can go down to the hospital and see that everything’s ready for evening rounds. We’ll be starting a bit late, so it’s important that there be no further delays once I arrive.”

Neatly cornered, Sister Crawley said, “Of course, Doctor. I was just about to do that.”

She left, and Thomas asked, “What was Captain Crawley doing here, sir?”

“I don’t know,” Major Clarkson said. “But apparently he thinks our convalescent home is something his general ought to see.”

There was a hint of a question in his tone, and Thomas explained, “He’s aide-de-camp to a General Strutt, who’s making a tour of training camps and things. I don’t think I’d heard that medical facilities were part of it.”

“ _Strutt_ ,” Clarkson said scornfully. “I don’t suppose it matters much what he sees, as long as the propaganda department can make hay of it.”

“Yes, sir?” Thomas asked, hoping for some elaboration on this intriguing point.

He didn’t get it. They entered the East Ward, and Major Clarkson turned his attention to asking one of the severe cases, a double amputee who’d come from the York hospital, how he was settling in. 

By the time they finished, and Major Clarkson departed for the hospital, Thomas was late for tea. When he went into the breakfast room, everyone stood up again. 

_Really_? _We’re doing this again_? “As you were,” he said, and went to fill a plate. 

Conversations resumed. When Thomas sat down, Franklin and Griff—who happened to be nearest—were talking about Captain Crawley. “He’s Sister Crawley’s son,” Franklin said. “Heard ’im calling her ‘Mother,’ didn’t I?”

“Well I heard the butler chappie call him the ‘future Earl of Grantham.’ Don’t that mean he’s the current one’s son?”

“Not always,” Thomas said. They both turned to look at him. “Sister Crawley’s his mother. Lord and Lady Grantham don’t have a son; that’s why he’s the heir. He’s the next one in the male line.”

Griff frowned. “Run that by me again, Sarge?” 

So Thomas explained how entails worked. When he finished, Wiggins asked, “So the daughters don’t get anything? The old Colonel pops his clogs, and our Nurse Crawley’s out on the street, and her sisters too?” He sounded scandalized.

“Hardly,” Thomas said. “Most of it’s tied up in the entail—the house, the land, and all that—but what’s left over is still more than any of us will see in our lives. The girls each have a pile coming to them when they get married, and there’s a house set aside for the earl’s widow—the big brick one with all the windows, between here and the village?”

The others nodded. 

“His lordship’s mum lives there now, but assuming her ladyship outlives him, she gets it next.” Thomas supposed there _would_ be a bit of a dust-up if the _Dowager_ outlived her son, but that was hardly likely. “Not that Captain Crawley _would_ kick them out, but if he did, there’s plenty of room for all of them over there.” 

“What about Sister Crawley?” someone asked. “What does she get?”

Thomas briefly considered what Carson would have to say about all this probing into the family’s financial affairs, before deciding he didn’t care. “I don’t think she’s _entitled_ to anything, as mother of the next earl,” he said. “But her house in the village is part of the estate. His lordship invited them to live in it when Captain Crawley was identified as his heir. And when Captain Crawley’s Earl, I expect he’ll let her keep it, unless she wants to live here, or change to one of the other houses.”

“ _One_ of the others?” someone else asked. “How many do they have?”

“I’m not sure,” Thomas admitted. “The only ones they use themselves are this one and the one in London, and then the Dower House and Crawley House. But I think there are at least a couple more large houses that they let out, plus a lot of normal ones—they own half the village, and most of the farms round here.”

Wiggins spoke up. “I ’spect that’s to do with that entail thing—nobody can sell nor give away any of it, so they just keep getting more and more?”

“Right,” Thomas said. “That’s what the entail is _for_ —otherwise, in a couple of generations, they’d go from being one outrageously wealthy family to a half a dozen well-off ones.” And that was probably about enough talk on this subject, unless he wanted to start a revolution like they were having over in Russia. “Speaking of Captain Crawley, he’s making a tour with a General Strutt, and they may turn up here at some point. Anybody know anything about him?”

“General _Strutt_?” asked Franklin. “The hero of the Somme?”

“Hero my arse,” Griff told him. “He’s the one responsible for the whole bloody slaughter.”

“Watch your language,” Thomas reminded him. “Responsible how?”

Griff, the former artilleryman, began explaining something complicated and technical about the number and caliber of guns allocated to each hundred yards of Front when the Push had been planned. “Then Strutt comes along and says, hey, if we use lighter guns and spread them half as thin, we have enough to cover twice as much Front. The top brass liked the sound of that, so they took the other bloke out and put Strutt in charge. The lighter guns won’t penetrate the Boche dugouts, so Zero Day comes, our lads start walking across, and the Boche pop out and pick them off like rats in a cellar.” 

Thomas vaguely remembered the Wardmaster telling him something along those lines, before the attack—that a mate of his in the artillery thought that the bombardment was causing more noise than damage. “That was him?”

“Yep,” said Griff. “Bloody bastard.”

One of the lads who’d never been on overseas service said doubtfully, “The papers never said nothing about that.” 

“They wouldn’t, would they?” Griff said darkly. “Got to keep people’s spirits up.”

Unconsciously, Thomas rubbed his left shoulder. He only realized he was doing it when Wiggins asked, “That’s where you got your packet, isn’t it, Sarge?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I only saw the first hour of the attack—after that I was busy trying not to bleed out—but it was bad.” He’d not have minded getting five minutes in a dark alley with the man to blame—but meeting him as an honored guest at Downton Abbey was a different story. 

Still, at idle moments throughout the rest of the evening’s work, Thomas entertained a fantasy of how, if he were still a footman, he could contrive to pour boiling soup into the man’s lap and, with luck, prevent any future Strutts from being a scourge upon the world. A momentary weakness in his wounded shoulder, no idea how it had happened, honest, Mr. Carson….

When at last they had the patients settled down for the night, Thomas went over instructions with the night shift—they’d normally have two on night duty, but had three tonight, in case of unexpected developments—and got down to the servants’ hall just as they were sitting down to dinner. 

Branson was still hanging about, for some reason, and nattering on about the latest news from Russia, and how he felt that locking up the tsar’s family and starting a new government wasn’t going far enough. Despite all this, Carson warmly invited him to stay and eat with them. 

When Branson paused in explaining how he favored the views of someone called Lenin, Anna said, “You’d best get all this out of your system now you’ve been called up, and keep it to yourself once you get there.”

Thomas turned to him sharply. “You’ve been called up?” _He doesn’t approve of military authority in general…or the monarchy_ , Nurse Crawley had said. 

Bloody buggering hell.

Lady Sybil was in love with the chauffeur. 

He missed the next few moments of conversation, trying to convince himself it wasn’t _necessarily_ true. It was certainly Branson she’d been speaking of this afternoon, when she asked what would happen to a person who disobeyed orders. And she’d said something about being in love with someone unsuitable—but that had been weeks ago. 

Only she’d said something about it to Courtenay, more recently, hadn’t she? And it would explain why Branson had been so keen to help out today—because Nurse Crawley was there. 

His train of thought was interrupted when Lang spoke up. “You don’t know that,” he said, in evident answer to something Branson— _Lady Sybil’s beau_ —had said. “No one know what’ll happen, when these things start. Look at her nephew,” he added, indicating Mrs. Patmore, who was dishing out the potatoes. “Shot for cowardice. Who’d have guessed that, when he was saying hello to the neighbors, or kissing his mother goodnight?”

Mrs. Patmore’s face crumpled. Before anyone could react, Daisy ran into the room with a question about something happening in the kitchen, and Mrs. Patmore fled. 

Everyone’s attention, which had been focused on not looking at Mrs. Patmore, now turned to not looking at Lang. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I never thought—”

“Then you should think,” Mrs. Hughes interrupted, sharply, getting up from her seat. “You aren’t the only member of the walking wounded in this house.” She went after Mrs. Patmore. 

Thomas vaguely remembered hearing that Mrs. Patmore had a nephew who’d been killed—it was probably Anna who’d told him. To her, he murmured, “Did we know…?”

“No,” she said. “Apparently she confided in Henry.”

Her tone was a little sharp, too, and with a glance at Lang, Thomas said, “Well, if she didn’t say it was supposed to be a secret….”

“I don’t remember if she did,” Lang said. “I don’t think so.”

Carson cleared his throat. “Thomas. Now that you are no longer _busy_ , perhaps you’d care to explain why you think it appropriate to order the family about.”

 _No I bloody well wouldn’t_. Thomas was tempted to say precisely that—but if he did, he’d be letting Carson’s interpretation of events go unchallenged. “Perhaps you’d care to explain why you think I have?” He suspected he knew at least one of them—Lady Edith and the water glasses—but to explain unprompted would give the impression he’d understood himself to be doing something at least open to question.

“Summoning his lordship away from his tea to _inspect_ your…men?”

He somehow managed to make “men” sound like Thomas was keeping a sort of male harem, rather than commanding a military unit. “I didn’t _summon_ Colonel Grantham, I _asked_ him if he’d like to review them. He is the ranking officer present, even if he’s nothing to do with the hospital. I thought it might be a good idea if they know what he looks like.”

“Was that it?” Bates asked. “He was wondering.”

Thomas nodded. “One of my lads pointed out how embarrassing it’d be for all concerned if one of them asked him if he needed help getting back to his bed, or something.”

Carson harrumphed, drawing their attention back to him. “And instructing Lady Edith to perform menial tasks?”

“She asked what she could do to help.” He deliberately left out the part about Sister Crawley having told her to make herself useful—Carson would probably consider it a mitigating circumstance, but Thomas didn’t need mitigating circumstances when he’d done nothing wrong.

“And you couldn’t have said, ‘Thank you, my lady, but we have everything well in hand’?” Carson asked acidly.

Now, Thomas wondered, why hadn’t that occurred to him? Perhaps because he was used to the nurses—Nurse Crawley included—who expected to be taken at their word when they volunteered to do something. “I could have,” he conceded. “But since there _was_ something she could do to help, I don’t know why I would have.”

“So as to prevent Lady Edith from _demeaning herself_ ,” Carson proclaimed. 

“Goodness,” said Mrs. Hughes, returning from comforting Mrs. Patmore—or whatever it was she’d been doing. “How is Lady Edith demeaning herself?”

“By setting out water glasses in the wards,” Thomas said. “I put her up to it. It’ll be all my fault when she winds up selling oranges in Covent Garden.” Thomas had no idea whether prostitutes still sold oranges in Covent Garden; it was a last-minute substitute for _stripping in the Main Hall_ , which he belatedly realized was going a little far. 

Carson stood up, roaring, “That is enough!” Thomas had to fight not to flinch. Lang actually did, knocking over Ethel’s glass in the process. 

“Now look what you’ve done,” O’Brien accused him.

“ _Me_?” Thomas demanded. He wasn’t the one carrying on like a maniac—though, he realized guilty, he was the one who’d put the idea in Lang’s head that a sufficiently enraged Carson could turn violent. 

“You’ve done plenty, Thomas,” Mrs. Hughes snapped. “Go and get a cloth,” she told Daisy, who was peering around the doorframe to see what all the commotion was about. 

“I’m sorry,” Lang was saying to Ethel. “I didn’t mean….”

“It’s all right,” she said tightly, picking up a sodden slice of bread from her plate, and looking around as though for somewhere to put it. 

The rest of the meal was very quiet, at least until Carson and Mrs. Hughes took their leave, announcing that they’d have their pudding in her sitting room. 

“Why must you antagonize him?” Bates asked, once they’d gone.

“Why must he antagonize me?” Thomas retorted. 

It was probably just as well that no one answered. He ate his crumble in as few bites as possible, and escaped out to the courtyard for a cigarette.

As he smoked it, he thought about what he’d say to Anna when she came out after him. Or Lang, when he did. Possibly Bates. 

But none of them did come out after him. Branson did, but only because he was going back to his cottage, and all he said was, “Goodnight, Thomas.”

“Sergeant Barrow,” Thomas said, peevishly. 

Finishing his cigarette, he contemplated lighting another one, just to avoid having to go back inside and face everyone. But, he realized belatedly, he _didn’t_ have to go to the servants’ hall, did he? Pocketing his lighter, he went inside and headed straight up the stairs. He’d walk round the wards, and check in on his night staff.

See who else might be awake.

Nurse Bellamy was in the Big Ward, filling out the day-book by the light of a shaded lamp. “It’s all quiet,” she said. “A few of them are still up, in the recreation room, but most of them are tired from all the excitement.” 

He checked the East Ward—serious cases—next. Private Noakes, on duty there, said that, “Everything’s fine, except Captain Billings says he’s supposed to have two tablets morphine at bedtime—can’t sleep without ’em, he says. Nothing about it on his paperwork from York.” He handed Thomas the chart.

There wasn’t, but Billings was the one that York hadn’t bothered to mention was missing his legs, so Thomas had his doubts about the thoroughness of their records. The chart also didn’t say that he’d been given any morphine today, which meant they could be confident he hadn’t had any since arriving here, at least. “Give it to him, but let’s make sure we check with the MO about it when he does rounds tomorrow,” Thomas decided, making a note to that effect on the chart. 

He fetched it, and then moved on to the West Ward, where he caught Private Purvis attempting to read a newspaper by the moonlight streaming in through the French windows. Purvis attempted to hide it behind his back, but was nowhere near quick enough. Thomas shook his head, and beckoned Purvis out into the corridor. “I take it everything’s quiet?” he said dryly.

“Yes, Sarge. That Lieutenant Courtenay was asking for you, is all.”

Thomas glanced through the open door at him. “Did he say why?” 

“No, Sarge. Just that he’d like to see you, if you came round. Er, not see you, but you know.”

Thomas nodded. “Is he awake?”

“Hard to say, Sarge.”

He went into the room and paced up the center aisle, not walking _quite_ as quietly as he could have, but certainly not loudly enough to wake anyone, either. When he reached the far end of the ward and turned around, Lieutenant Courtenay had propped himself up on his elbow. Thomas hurried to his side. “It’s Sergeant Barrow, sir. Is there anything you need?”

“Not _need_ ,” he said, pitching his voice low enough not to wake his neighbors. “But if you aren’t busy, I wouldn’t mind a bit of fresh air.”

“Certainly, sir,” Thomas said. He remained coolly professional as he helped Courtenay into his dressing gown and slippers, and until they’d made it out of Purvis’s hearing. “Are you all right, then?”

Courtenay nodded and made a vaguely affirmative noise. “I’ve always had trouble sleeping in a new place. You can imagine how well that served me at the Front.”

“Indeed,” Thomas said. “We’re crossing the main hall now. We’ll go through the recreation room and out onto the terrace, if that’s sounds all right.”

“Well, I haven’t any better ideas,” Courtenay said. “It’s echo-y in here,” he noted. “High ceilings?”

“Yes, it’s open all the way up to the roof. Three stories.” 

“Goodness.”

“Here’s the recreation room—the library, in civilian life.” There were, as Nurse Bellamy had said, a few patients still up, most reading, a trio playing cards. Thomas unlatched one of the French windows. “Bit of a step up, here. About halfway to knee high.” That obstacle successfully navigated, Thomas said, “Do you want to sit, or stroll?”

“Sit, I should think,” he said. As Thomas guided him toward a bench, he added, “I didn’t do any cane practice today. I suppose there’s no reason I shouldn’t do some in the dark, but I didn’t bring it.” 

“I suppose one day off from it won’t hurt,” Thomas said. “One more step, and turn around.” They sat. “Cigarette?” Thomas asked, getting them out.

“Thanks.” 

Thomas lit two and handed one to Courtenay.

“Are _you_ all right, then?” Courtenay asked. 

Was he so obvious now, that a blind man could tell? “It’s been a bit of a long day.”

“You seem a little tense.”

“Suppose I am,” Thomas admitted. “It’s just that I spent all day smoothing things over. Between the medical staff and the family. The medical staff and the house staff. The patients and the family. The patients and the other patients. No matter who’s unhappy or what they’re unhappy about, it’s my job to fix it. And then I finally hand things over to the night shift and go down to dinner, and Carson starts laying into me.” 

“Who’s Carson?” Courtenay asked. 

“The butler. He hates me.”

“Why does he hate you?”

For a split second, Thomas thought about telling him. “Never mind why. But he always has, and he hates me even more now I’m meant to be in charge here.” 

“So I suppose you aren’t necessarily all that keen on coming back to work here after the war,” Courtenay said. 

“Keen?” Thomas scoffed. “At the moment, I’d rather dig ditches. No, and I don’t think Carson’d have me back even if I begged him, now. I don’t have the faintest idea what I’ll do. Been trying not to think about it, really. Suppose I’ll stay in the Army as long as they’ll have me—”

“Thomas,” Courtenay interrupted, placing his hand on top of Thomas’s. “Is anyone watching us?”

“What?” Thomas glanced over at the library windows, and saw no silhouettes behind the curtains. “No, why?”

In answer, Courtenay half-turned to face Thomas, and brought one hand up to cup his jaw. “I hope to God I’m not wrong about this,” he said.

“You’re not,” Thomas said, and kissed him. Or Courtenay—Edward—kissed him. Perhaps they both leaned in for it at the same time. 

It was brief, fairly chaste, and when they parted, Edward said, “You’ve no idea how difficult it is to tell these things when you’re blind.”

“No,” Thomas agreed, laughing. Suddenly he felt as light as air, as though nothing that had happened today mattered anymore. “It’s no picnic when the bloke you’re trying to figure out is blind, but I suppose it’s even worse the other way.” 

Courtenay laced their fingers together. “I couldn’t wait any longer to find out for certain.” He hesitated. “You see, I’ve had a letter from the blind center.”

Just like that, Thomas came crashing back to earth. “Oh.” 

“I go in three days. Friday.”

“Oh,” Thomas repeated. “Well, that’s…I mean, that’s good, isn’t it? You’re better now, and they’ll be able to…oh, bloody hell.” 

“Yes, that’s about how I feel about it,” Courtenay said. “I don’t see how I can put it off, considering what it took the last time. But that’s why I wanted to find out. If you….” He gestured between them. “You could come to Hartgrove Hall, after the war. That’s our place. Help me stand up to Mother, and—well, everything.”

“As your valet,” Thomas said, his mouth suddenly dry.

“Well, yes. Officially.” 

It was, Thomas realized, everything he’d ever wanted.

Three years ago. 

Before Peter. Before the war, which—for all else it had done—had shown him how much more he could be than everyone’s least favorite footman. Before the Wardmaster had said, _He figured you for his right-hand man, but that’s not you, not by a long shot_ and _you stick to your own kind, you don’t risk some bugger thinking he owns you_. 

Courtenay pulled away slightly. “You’re not saying anything. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he said. “It’s just…a lot to think about.” He shifted closer to Courtenay on the bench, pressing their shoulders together. “It used to be my life’s ambition, being valet to a gentleman of a certain inclination.” 

“Used to be,” Courtenay repeated. “But not anymore?”

“I’m not sure,” Thomas admitted. “I mean, you’re…lovely, and I could see us being good together. But I’m not sure that being my…lover’s _servant_ is what I want.” He shook his head. “No, in fact I know it isn’t what I _want_. What I’m not sure about is if I could put up with it anyway, for you. Maybe.” 

Courtenay took a deep breath. “You could be my secretary, but I have a feeling that wouldn’t, ah…address the real problem.”

“Right,” Thomas said. 

“There isn’t any other way,” Courtenay said. “We’d have to have some sort of cover story, and I don’t think there’s anything else that would work.”

Thomas couldn’t either. His heart breaking just a little, he pointed out, “By the time the war ends, you might feel differently. I mean, you said yourself you would have married Nurse Crawley.” For that reason, the small and avaricious part of Thomas—the part that had known even as he was tucking Philip’s letters away and tying them with a ribbon that it wasn’t _only_ for sentiment’s sake—wanted to lock him down with a promise now, if only so that he could cry foul when Courtenay broke it. 

“It’s true I might have,” Courtenay admitted. “I’m not…attracted to very many girls. Just once in a while. I always figured it would be easier if I could find one to marry, live a normal sort of life. But now there’s this,” he indicated his eyes, “and you, and…you really have saved my life. Not just…that night. Even if we never meet again after Friday, you’ll always have been one of the most important people in my life.” 

Thomas couldn’t quite say the same of him, he realized. Courtenay—Edward—was a patient he’d gotten close to. A man he’d been attracted to. A man he could have slept with—and might yet, if he could think of a place, and Edward was willing. But he’d certainly never eclipse Peter. 

“Let’s make sure we _do_ meet again,” he said. “After the war. I’ll write you at—what is it?, Hartgrove Hall—as an old war chum. It just so happens I’ll be passing through the area, etcetera. And then we’ll—well, we’ll see how we both feel about things then.” 

Courtenay nodded slowly. “Yes, I suppose that’s…sensible. You’re always so sensible. It’s one of the things l l-like about you.” 

_Like_ hadn’t been his first choice of word, Thomas suspected. “I’m not saying no,” he pointed out. “I’m saying _not yet_.” 

Courtenay smiled. “I know. Can I kiss you again?”

“Sure,” Thomas said, and—after checking the windows again—suited action to words. Courtenay’s lips were soft, and tasted of cigarettes. 

Drawing back, Courtenay said, “I suppose we’d better go back in. Someone’s bound to wonder where we’ve been all this time.”

There went Thomas’s half-formed plan to suggest they go fuck in the fake Roman temple. “You’re right,” he said, giving Courtenay’s hand one final squeeze before putting it on his arm in the approved professional manner for an orderly guiding a blind man. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content note: A stretcher-party from Thomas's old section is hit by a shrapnel shell. Rawlins is injured; Eakins and Hutchinson are killed. 
> 
> Historical note: Wiggins remarks that he’d never been “out of the Smoke, aside from the hop-picking, until they sent me to Wipers.” “The Smoke” is London. Wipers is Ypres, a part of Belgium that was home to a particularly unpleasant section of the Western Front. 
> 
> “Hop-picking” refers to the harvesting of hops, a flower used in making beer. Up until the middle of the 20th century, no machinery existed for harvesting hops—they had to be picked by hand. Since England’s hop-growing country was a short train ride from London, the slums of the East End were a convenient source of seasonal labor. Less time-sensitive industries would temporarily shut down as the workers migrated the country for a few weeks. Usually, the whole family went, and they would go to the same farm year after year. Hop-picking was hard, physical work, but it was a bit of a change, and got the children out in the fresh air, so it was also what passed for a vacation for poor families. Mashable has some photos here: https://mashable.com/2017/06/03/hop-pickers/ 
> 
> All of this would have been well-known to the Downton staff, and if his accent hadn’t already clued them in, Wiggins’s mention of hop-picking would have established that he is the kind of working-class that other working-class people look down on.


	26. Chapter 21: May-June, 1917

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the visit of General Sir Herbert Strutt (Hero of the Somme) looming, tensions run high--and on the day of the visit, they boil over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content notes: Discussion of PTSD and war flashbacks. Workplace bullying. Mention of suicide.
> 
> This chapter overlaps with the second half of episode 2x03, covering the General’s visit to Downton. Some dialogue—including what Carson says about Branson and Lang—is taken from that episode. His remark about “low standards” is drawn from a season 3 exchange about Ethel.

“Oh, and Granny’s is gone,” Rawlins added. 

“Shelled?” Thomas asked, wondering if the old lady was all right. To his surprise, Major Clarkson had not forgotten about his request for a day off to go to London, and when the date for General Strutt’s visit to the convalescent home was confirmed, he’d told Thomas to hurry up and take it before the preparations were in full swing. 

“Oh, no,” Rawlins said. “She just left—evacuated further back, I think. We went there one day, and it was, you know, egg and chips and girls with their blouses half undone. Tried to get the story out of them, but they didn’t parley.” 

By now, Rawlins had brought Thomas up to date—or at least, up to a month and a half ago, when he’d left the 47th—on their friends and acquaintances, starting with the cat and working his way down in importance. He hadn’t raised any topics more substantial than unit gossip, and Thomas was beginning to wonder if, perhaps, “I wouldn’t mind seeing you” was not the urgent summons he had taken it for. “Sounds like you got out just in time,” he noted. 

“Yeah, the place is really going downhill,” Rawlins agreed. “And look at you, getting out when you did— _Wardmaster_?”

“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” Thomas admitted. “Our Wardmaster, you know, he pretty much only had to answer to Major Thwait, and he let him pretty much do what he wanted. I have to answer to Major Clarkson, Lady Grantham, the Ward Sister, and Carson.” 

Rawlins frowned. “Carson’s your butler, right?”

“Not _my_ butler,” Thomas said. “If he was, I’d sack him. The rest of them aren’t so bad, but they all have different ideas of what I ought to be doing.”

“Typical,” Rawlins said. “Still, at least there’s no one actually shooting at you.”

“True,” Thomas admitted. But he’d never really minded that part. “And the patients are in pretty good shape, by the time we get them.” Not that he’d minded that part, either. He changed the subject. “What about you? How are they treating you here?” He figured if there _was_ actually anything wrong, that might put Rawlins on the subject.

“Oh, not bad. The physios, you know how they run you ragged.”

“Yeah,” Thomas agreed, flexing his bad shoulder. 

“They tell me this might not be quite enough to get me invalided out,” Rawlins added, indicating the stump of his leg. “Above the knee, the let you out; below, they have to think about it.”

“Oh, yeah,” Thomas said. “We’ve got a bloke with an artificial foot. Wainwright. He does all right.”

“Yeah?” Rawlins asked. “That wouldn’t be so bad, if they’d send me to your lot.”

Was _that_ what it was he wanted? Thomas eyed him evaluatively. “We could use a corporal—haven’t had one since I got promoted.” He didn’t have a lot of pull with Major Clarkson, but he might have some. “When are you getting out?”

“Not for ages,” Rawlins said. “At least six months, they said. Could all be over by then,” he added optimistically.

“Could be,” Thomas said, more dubiously. Getting Rawlins transferred to him certainly wasn’t an _emergency_ , then, but he could start laying the groundwork. “Got my hopes up a little when the Americans declared, but they don’t seem in much of a hurry to muck in.” The papers had made a big thing of the arrival of some American ships to patrol for u-boats, but unless it was being kept secret, they hadn’t actually landed anyone in France yet. 

“Nah, but the Germans have got to be shitting themselves,” Rawlins said. “They’re already in a bad way—we had some prisoners come through. One of them had some English, and told Collins they had rations cut twice already this year, the bread they get is half sawdust, and they only kept going because their brass told them we were even worse off. When Collins took ‘em something from our mess, they just about cried.” 

“Poor buggers,” Thomas said automatically. Could Rawlins be right? He ought to want a quick end to the war—he did want it, really—but it would mean facing up to a lot of things he’d been avoiding. “Keep me posted, though—if it’s not over by then, and it looks like they’re keeping you in, I’ll see if my CO can pull any strings. It’d be great to have you.” Just what he needed, really—his own right-hand man. 

“All right,” Rawlins said. “To be honest, I’m not that keen on getting out, as long as I don’t end up somewhere shuffling papers around. I go home, Mother’s going to have me wrapped up in cotton wool faster than you can say ‘knife.’” 

Once again, Thomas was reminded that where Rawlins ended up by not trying was better than anywhere Thomas could scheme himself into. But there was no point blaming Rawlins for it. 

It was nearly tea-time, so Rawlins used all his charm to convince the Ward Sister to let him out to go to the pub, and when that didn’t work, they headed down to the mess, Rawlins swinging along easily on his crutches. Unsurprisingly, Rawlins had accumulated about a table’s-worth of friends, and he proudly showed Thomas off to them. 

It was a good day—a day when no one was looking to Thomas for immediate and universally approved-of solutions to all their problems. Taking a late train back to Yorkshire, Thomas thought that, even though it had turned out Rawlins hadn’t needed him, he had needed it.

The next day, everything was back to normal. They had less than ten days before General Strutt’s visit, and while Thomas would just as soon have spat in his eye, he wasn’t about to let him catch them looking less than their best. Mid-morning found him walking through the house with his clipboard again, this time with Mrs. Hughes, identifying everything that needed to be cleaned, polished, or repaired, and deciding whether it would be handled by the maids or the orderlies. 

“Right,” Thomas said as they entered the main hall. “So I can have my lads wash the windows, as long as—”

“Ethel!” Mrs. Hughes said, bustling over to where Ethel was standing amid a group of patients. “Have you finished with the bedrooms already?”

“No, Mrs. Hughes,” she said. “I just came down to get another duster.”

“And you thought these gentlemen might have one?” Mrs. Hughes scoffed. 

Thomas turned his attention to the patients. “Was there something you needed, sirs?” He almost wished Ethel would go back to flirting with his men—them, at least, he could shout at. 

“Er, no, Sergeant,” said one of them, a Major Bryant. 

“Are you sure? Because it’d be no trouble to send an orderly to assist you with anything you may need.”

“No, thank you,” the Major repeated. 

“Very good, sir,” Thomas said, and rejoined Mrs. Hughes a little distance away. 

Shaking her head, she said, “Ethel takes more watching than the rest of them put together.”

“I had to chase her out of the orderlies’ room last week,” Thomas admitted, though he forebore to mention that she’d been sitting on Griff’s knee at the time. “Seems she’s moved on to greener pastures.”

“I’ll have to speak to her again,” Mrs. Hughes said. “Now, what were you saying about the windows?”

Thomas picked up his train of thought. “I can have my men wash them, if the maids polish the stair railings and black the grates.”

Mrs. Hughes agreed to this plan, and they moved on to discussing whether it was feasible to dust the pillars and archways here in the hall—a monumental task normally undertaken when the family was in London—for the General’s visit. Thomas, suspecting that Mrs. Hughes had started thinking of this occasion as an excuse to catch up on tasks that had fallen to the wayside now that they had only one hallboy and one rather wobbly footman, came down firmly on the side that it was not. 

They went into the library next, Mrs. Hughes conceding, “The bookcases are certainly due for polishing,” but explaining, “If the maids were to do it, we’d have to bar the men from using it for an afternoon. It wouldn’t be proper for them to be up on ladders with men about.”

Her argument was, Thomas thought, weakened by the sight of Lady Edith nimbly descending a library ladder, with a book in hand. She handed it to a young Lieutenant who was waiting at the foot of the ladder, whose crutches served as silent explanation for why he hadn’t made the ascent himself. “I do think you’ll like this one,” she was saying, “but if you don’t, we’ll try again.” 

“I’m keeping an eye on _that_ , too,” Thomas assured Mrs. Hughes, once they were out of Lady Edith’s earshot. Lady Mary had lost interest in the patients within a day or two of their arrival, but Lady Edith was a frequent visitor, recommending books or walks to the patients, providing a fourth for bridge or a listening ear, and running their errands in the village. It struck Thomas as a slightly odd pastime for a young lady, but it did seem to cheer the men up. 

“I see,” Mrs. Hughes said. “I trust you’d alert her ladyship if there was anything she might be concerned about?”

“Of course,” Thomas said. Respectable young ladies were thin on the ground in France—at least in the areas near the Front—but Thomas hadn’t seen any signs that any of the officers had forgotten how to behave around one. 

After they finished the walk-through, Thomas went back to his office, where he found a letter from the Wardmaster waiting for him:

_TB—_

_I’d best not say much about GSHS, HotS, because you never know what might count as sensitive information, and I’d hate to give the poor sod censoring my letters an aneurism, but yeah, I’ve heard what you’ve heard. I wouldn’t like it much if he turned up here, either, but yeah, only thing you can do, really, is show him that some people know how to do their fucking jobs._

In the outer part of the room, Griff’s voice rose. “So I says to ‘er, we’re laying down our lives, the least you can do is lay down. And she slaps me, of course, but….”

It turned out Thomas needn’t have worried about the men being unable to relax with the orderlies’ room doubling as his office—from the sound of it Griff had quite forgotten that he was back here, at his desk behind the linen shelves, when he’d started in on one of his estaminet girl stories. With that latest remark, Thomas went from wondering if he ought to step out and remind them that the nurses came into this room too, when they needed to get linen or drugs, to deciding how he’d time his entrance for the greatest impact.

Unfortunately, someone else got there first. “What in heaven’s name do you think you’re doing?” Carson boomed. _“Get your filthy boots off that table before I have you horsewhipped_. And you—smoking _upstairs—_ ”

Thomas barreled out from behind the linen shelves. “ _Hut_!”

Both men—it was Griffiths and Parker—jumped to their feet and braced up. Thomas left them like that and wheeled on Carson. “Mr. Carson,” he said, his voice dead level. “You have no business giving orders to my men. And for your information, they’re allowed to smoke in here.”

Carson drew himself up. “I am the butler here, and—”

Thomas cut him off. “And I am the Wardmaster. These men are in the king’s service, not Lord Grantham’s. They’re my responsibility.”

“We’ll see about that,” Carson sputtered.

“Yes,” Thomas said. “We will.” Thomas turned away from Carson, attempting to communicate with the gesture his utter conviction that Carson would remove himself from Thomas’s presence posthaste. Griff and Parker were fighting not to smirk—a battle they were losing, until Thomas said, “Don’t look so pleased with yourselves. You’re allowed to smoke in here; you’re not allowed to put your feet on the furniture—which one of you was it?”

“Me, Sergeant,” Parker said. “But it wasn’t really _on_ the table, just—”

“I don’t care. You’ll polish it—after you’ve finished your shift.”

Parker wisely chose not to argue further. “Yes, Sergeant.”

 _That’s right—you are getting a fucking bollocking_ , Thomas thought. Seeing out of the corner of his eye that Carson had, finally, left, he continued, “And you both know better than to tell mucky stories in here, where the nurses might walk in any minute.”

“Yes, Sergeant,” they agreed, in wobbly chorus. 

“You’re both in the sinkroom for the rest of the afternoon,” Thomas told them. “And if I come down there at tea-time and everything isn’t spotless, you’ll stay there until it is. Dismissed.”

They left, and Thomas stomped back around the shelves to his desk. If he was Wardmaster Tully, he’d have poured himself a drink, but since he was Wardmaster Barrow, he lit a cigarette, and picked his letter back up.

_You might have thought of this, but I’d be careful what you say to your lads about him—don’t want them getting the idea it’s all right to be disrespectful to his face. On the other hand, if anyone’s especially riled up, you might pull him aside and let him know you don’t like it either. You know how that goes._

Thinking of the times the Wardmaster had told him things that were, in his phrasing, “Not to spread around,” Thomas realized that he did indeed know how that went. 

_This Carson character sounds like a tough nut to crack. With you being in different chains of command, there’s only so much you can do. I’d say staying out of his way is the best course, except it sounds like you’re in each other’s pockets up there._

_Things here are about as much of a mess as usual. I put Widener up, for your old section…._

The last few lines of the letter were about how Widener was struggling with his new responsibilities. Thomas read them carefully for any clues as to his own situation, but found nothing. Well, he supposed it had been asking a lot to hope that the Wardmaster would have the key to fixing with Carson, from the other side of the Channel. 

Putting the letter away, he wrote up his notes from the meeting with Mrs. Hughes into a plan for getting the work done in time, and then went in to the orderlies’ lunch. Once again, everybody stopped what they were doing and braced up. “As you were,” Thomas said. “Are we still doing that?” he asked. He’d been hoping they would stop on their own eventually, but it was starting to seem unlikely. 

“We decided,” Wiggins explained, “that if we have to stand up for that stuffed-shirt Carson, we’re damned if we won’t do it for our Wardmaster.”

“Oh,” Thomas said, nonplussed. He’d thought it most likely that they were doing it out of a slightly confused notion of how things were done in a house like this. He hadn’t entirely ruled out piss-taking as a motivation, but it hadn’t occurred to him that they might be taking the piss out of _Carson_. “Carry on, then,” he said, filling his plate. “Sort of a shame he can’t actually see you doing it, though.”

“Well, Sarge,” Franklin said, “if you came to the mess _on time_ , the kitchen girls might see, and tell ‘im, like.”

It was a nice thought, but unlikely. “Carson doesn’t fraternize with the kitchen girls.” 

“Hm,” said Wiggins, a speculative look in his eye. 

Later that day, Thomas went downstairs to check how Wainwright and Franklin were getting along with inventorying the medical supplies. Wainwright was sitting in a kitchen chair, writing things down as Franklin counted them. At the sight of Thomas, Wainwright jumped to his feet, and they both braced up. 

No one was going to see that, either, unless they happened to be walking by at just the right moment, but it was a nice try, Thomas supposed. “As you were,” he said, taking Wainwright’s clipboard and scanning it. “How are we going through this much three-inch bandaging?” 

“Oh, well,” Franklin said. He didn’t actually shuffle his feet, but he looked as though he might start at any moment.

“What?” Thomas asked.

Franklin hesitated. “Nurse ffinch-Browne.”

She was one of the new VADs who had been sent for the convalescent home, and seemed an unlikely thief. “What’s she been doing with it?” 

“Putting it in the burn bin,” Franklin admitted. “With the gauze and lint.”

“What, all of it?” They sometimes burned bandages if they were very badly soiled, but with convalescent patients, most of the time the bandages were fit to use again once they’d been boiled and re-rolled. 

“Only for the dressing-changes she did before yesterday afternoon,” Wainwright said. 

“It’s all right,” Franklin added. “I explained, and she understands now.”

Thomas briefly considered sending someone—possibly ffinch-Browne herself—out to the burn pile to see if any bandages could be salvaged. But even if they hadn’t been burned, they’d have hardened into a mass with all of the material which was _supposed_ to be burnt. “I see,” he said. “Anything else we’re unexpectedly short of? She’s not throwing away splints or thermometers when she’s done with them?”

“Don’t think so, Sarge,” Franklin said. 

Thomas resolved to review the completed inventory with extra care.

Over the next few days, the orderlies found more and more occasions to stand up when Thomas entered a room. Palmer just happened to be sitting in the kitchen when Thomas went down to check on a change in the patient menus. Griff took to doing his loitering in the servants’ hall rather than the orderlies’ room. A couple of chairs appeared in the sinkroom, and when Thomas appeared downstairs, there was a race to sit in them, and then get up again—all the more impressive because sinkroom duty was usually assigned to whomever he was least pleased with at any given time.

He knew it was working when Bates pulled him aside before dinner one night, an expression of vaguely constipated concern on his face, to ask if Thomas “really thought it a good idea” to stand on ceremony to that degree.

Thomas was half-tempted to leave him in the dark, but given how things worked here, it was likely halfway to being an article of faith among the staff that Thomas was forcing his men to pander to his sense of self-importance. “Oh, that’s none of my idea,” he said. “They’re doing it ‘cause they think Carson’s putting on airs, making you lot stand up whenever he comes into a room.”

“Really,” Bates said skeptically.

Thomas nodded. “Especially since he only has three men working under him.” _Barely enough to make up a patrol_ , Griff had said scornfully. “And I have twenty.”

Bates sighed. “And you really haven’t put them up to it?”

“No,” Thomas said, almost truthfully. “They figured out he was a wanker all on their own.”

“It isn’t helping matters, when it comes to Mr. Carson.”

“Didn’t think it was,” Thomas answered. “I’ll get them to knock it off when it stops being funny.” He paused. “If it ever does.”

Thomas half-wondered if, now that Bates had broached the topic, the rest of them would feel free to weigh in over dinner. But it was Lang’s turn in the hot seat instead, with Carson tutting over how he could possibly rely on him to serve dinner to General Sir Herbert Strutt, Hero of the Somme, after some undescribed but dire misstep he had committed in the dining room that night. “His lordship,” Carson pontificated, “has chosen to tolerate Henry’s…difficulties, but we cannot expect similar forbearance from a distinguished guest.”

“What did he _do_?” Thomas asked Anna, in a whisper.

“I’m not sure,” Anna said. “Something about forgetting to clear something, I think.”

“Golly,” Thomas said, more loudly. “No, it isn’t as though General Strutt has ever made a mistake _nearly_ as bad as that.” 

Across the table, Lang gave him a quick glance before saying piously, “Mr. Carson is right; I must be more careful.”

“But will that be enough, Henry?” asked Carson. “Will it be enough?”

A portentous silence followed, broken by Mrs. Hughes saying, “Weren’t you saying earlier today that it would be difficult to manage a grand enough dinner with just one footman?”

Suddenly, everyone was looking at Thomas while trying to look as though they weren’t. _Oh, fuck no_. Thomas managed not to actually say it out loud. He also rejected his next three ideas for replies:

 _You’re joking, aren’t you? You wouldn’t let me work here when I_ actually wanted to _, but_ now _you’re asking?_

_In what fever dream do you imagine it would look remotely proper for Lord Grantham to have the convalescent home’s medical staff acting as his personal servants?_

_If only General Strutt hadn’t made an absolute dog’s dinner of planning the biggest military offensive in British history, I might still have the use of both my arms, and then he’d have someone to put his soup in front of him._

“Oh,” he said instead. “Were you thinking of asking to borrow some men? Who did you have in mind? Prewitt and Wainwright, perhaps?” Those two, like him and Lang, were survivors of the Somme. 

Ethel asked, “Isn’t Prewitt the one with the….” She traced a line across her face, bisecting her nose and mouth. 

“Yes,” Thomas said. “Little souvenir of the Somme. Wainwright lost his leg there. Lang lost his wits, and of course I’ve got my shoulder. Excellent idea, Mr. Carson. I’m sure the General’d enjoy having a good look at what he’s done to us all.”

Carson drew himself up. “How dare you!”

Mrs. Hughes placed a placating hand on his arm, and asked Thomas, “Is it really fair to blame the General personally?”

“He botched it,” Thomas answered. “That’s why they have the ‘Hero of the Somme’ driving around England getting his photograph taken—because they’d already made him out to be a military genius before they realized what a spectacular cock-up he made of it. So yes, I’d say it’s fair.” 

Support came from an unexpected quarter. “He’s right,” Miss O’Brien said. “And he and Henry, and those other two, they’re the lucky ones. My brother was killed there. We didn’t find out for months, because there were so many dead. Why shouldn’t General Sir Herbert Strutt see the butcher’s bill?”

What was she playing at? For more than three years gone, she’d not have agreed with him that water was wet. 

He was vaguely aware of Mrs. Hughes saying, “Well, I don’t think we’ll be doing that.”

“It wasn’t a serious suggestion,” he replied, most of his attention still on O’Brien. She can’t have thought that chiming in would actually help—and, indeed, Carson was working up a head of steam.

“If you think,” he said, “that you’re going to do anything to disrupt the General’s visit—”

Thomas cut him off. “Wasn’t planning to.” So it wasn’t an olive branch from O’Brien; that was for damn sure. “Might not want to tempt me, though,” he added, and was vaguely aware of Carson drawing in his breath sharply. Had she just said it to stir things up? No. O’Brien certainly wasn’t above fanning the flames of an argument for the fun of it, but this one hadn’t been even close to dying out—and besides, if that was what she was after, she’d have made some kind of insinuation, playing the two sides against one another—not flat-out choosing one. 

The only explanation left—after ruling out all the others—was that she’d said it because she meant it. He meant to say something about how unlike her that was, but what came out instead was, “Was it Paul?” 

Her eyes flashed. “None of your business.”

It must have been. He was the only one of her brothers she cared about. “When—”

“Shut it.”

Her tone was dangerous, and Thomas, after carefully considering his options, decided to shut it.

Carson, meanwhile, was still trying to talk about the dinner party. “I suppose, then, that I shall have to manage as best I can with Henry.”

Now that he was deliberately not thinking about O’Brien, and was distracted from his dislike of General Sir Herbert Strutt, Hero of the Somme, Thomas automatically began thinking of solutions to Carson’s problem. He could give Arthur, the hall-boy, a crash course in waiting at table and stick him in livery for the evening. He could ask Mr. Molesley or Mr. Spratt—Mrs. Crawley and the Dowager Countess’s butlers—for help. He could telephone an employment agency and see if they had anyone suitable looking for temporary work—a long shot, given that by now most men were in uniform, but you never knew your luck. He could—

He could get knotted, was what he could do. This was not Thomas’s problem to solve. “Sounds like it!” he said cheerfully.

When dinner ground to an end, O’Brien quickly went out to the courtyard. Thomas, after a moment’s hesitation, followed her.

She was stood up against the wall, smoking angrily. Thomas selected a patch of wall not too far away from her—but not too close, either—and lit up. “Sorry about your brother.”

She snorted. Thomas smoked some more, and eventually she said, “I meant it, you know. You and Henry Lang are the lucky ones.”

“I know,” he said. 

He thought that might be it, but after a long pause, she said, “Her ladyship doesn’t know. She asks about him, and I lie, because she’d say how _dreadful_ it is, and how _sorry_ she is, when she wouldn’t lift a finger to stop him being sent back.”

Thomas had his doubts about whether her ladyship could have done anything, had she tried—the War Office’s insatiable appetite for warm bodies to throw into the meat-grinder being what it was. But there wasn’t any point saying that. “Yeah.”

“So what I want to know,” she went on, “is how did you manage it, you rotten little sneak?”

“What?” Thomas’s first thought was that she was accusing him of getting her brother sent back—though both _how_ he’d do that and _why_ were equally mysterious. 

“ _Why are you still here_?”

The question was somewhere between an accusation and a plea. She wasn’t asking why he was in the courtyard. She was asking why he was alive, and Paul—if it had been Paul—wasn’t. “Don’t know,” he said. Lied, really. He knew why he was alive. Rawlins and Rouse and Jessop and Captain Allenby and the Wardmaster. 

They weren’t the only reasons, of course. A lot of it was luck—terrifyingly blind chance. If the bullet had hit him in a worse spot, or if it had been dirtier, or if it had taken longer to find a blood donor, he’d have died anyway. 

But the other part—the only part that actually made any sense—was that he was alive because his friends had cared enough to keep him that way. And that was pretty terrifying, too. 

#

“Well,” Mr. Carson said acidly. “So much for relying on Thomas’s good nature.” 

“You don’t have to say ‘I told you so,’” Mrs. Hughes answered, just as tartly. Thomas had been so reasonable about planning the cleaning for the General’s visit, that she’d thought he just might be willing to help with the dinner, as well. “It might have worked if you had actually _asked_ him.”

“I wouldn’t lower myself,” Mr. Carson declared.

And _that_ was precisely why it might have worked. She didn’t entirely understand it, but Mr. Carson and Thomas both saw _asking for help_ as an act of self-abasement, but it was one of those matters—of which there were more than either of them would admit—in which they were in perfect accord. She didn’t doubt that Thomas would have enjoyed having Mr. Carson come to him with hat in hand—but he also would have recognized that he would only do so if the reason was very important. “Well, then,” she said. “It seems that standing on your pride matters more to you than the grandness of General Strutt’s dinner.” 

Mr. Carson shook his head, and began pouring their after-dinner sherry. “You’re a cruel woman, Mrs. Hughes.”

“If you say so.” She had no particular opinion as to which of those things really _did_ matter more—as far as she was concerned, neither of them was as important as Mr. Carson thought it was—but she was growing weary of Mr. Carson carrying on about the lowering of standards in the dining room while refusing every alternative available to him. 

“Speaking of cruel women,” he continued, handing her a glass, “am I correct in supposing that Miss O’Brien and Thomas have achieved a _rapprochement_?” 

“Not that I’ve noticed,” she said. Granted, neither of them had done anything particularly spiteful to the other recently—at least, nothing that had come to her attention—but an absence of active malice and a mutual dislike of a public figure seemed a thin basis on which to rebuild a friendship.

“No?” he asked. “Then that’s one bit of good news.”

Remembering Thomas saying, months ago, that he’d like to mend fences with Miss O’Brien, she wasn’t so sure it _was_ good.

#

“Something wrong, Nurse Crawley?” Thomas asked. He’d stepped outside to look for her after the last of the patients she’d been accompanying up from the hospital came inside, but she didn’t. He found her standing off to one side of the drive, her hands on her hips, looking off in the opposite direction. 

“Oh!” she said, turning around. “I’m sorry. I was woolgathering.”

She looked more like she had been _stewing_ , than woolgathering. Thomas raised an eyebrow.

“Branson is insufferable,” she declared.

Thomas was half-tempted to ask why, then, she was suffering him—he being a chauffeur, and she one of the young ladies of the house—but ten feet away from the front door of Downton Abbey didn’t seem like a particularly good place to tease Lady Sybil, even if she was in her Nurse Crawley role at the moment. 

Also, at this point he could still honestly say that he didn’t _know_ that there was anything unusual between her and Branson. He suspected, certainly, but that wasn’t the same thing as knowing. Telling anyone about a mere _suspicion_ would be gossip. So he just said, “Oh?”

“All I said was that I was glad he wasn’t going to be killed or sent to prison,” she elaborated. “He took it entirely the wrong way.”

Thomas couldn’t quite remember whether or not he was supposed to know that Branson was planning some act of idiocy when he reported for duty. If he’d decided not to, that explained the not getting arrested part, but not the not getting killed. “What happened?”

“Oh,” she said. “Didn’t he tell the rest of you? He failed his medical.” She frowned. “I hope it wasn’t supposed to be a secret.”

“I expect we’d notice him not leaving,” Thomas pointed out. “What’s wrong with him?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “He just started carrying on about Ireland, and how a cousin of his was killed…by the authorities, I suppose, and—oh,” she realized. “You mean his medical. He has a heart murmur.”

Thomas was a little surprised that was enough to keep him out of it. “Lucky old him,” he said. 

“That’s what I thought!” She shook her head. “But now he says he has to find another way to make the government look foolish.”

“Does he now,” Thomas murmured. 

“If he cares so much about Ireland, I don’t know why he doesn’t just go there,” she continued. 

Thomas had a fairly good idea, but it was the thing they weren’t talking about, so he just said, “Nothing stopping him, now that he doesn’t have to go to France.”

“Yes,” Nurse Crawley said. “I mean, no, there isn’t. Nothing at all.”

She squared herself up, and they went back inside and got to work on getting the patients settled. 

The next day at dinner, Carson was singing Branson’s praises for having, apparently, volunteered to wait at table for the General’s dinner. “I’ve no right to ask it of a chauffeur,” he pontificated, “but he—” Here, Carson paused to give Mrs. Hughes a significant look, “Didn’t wait to be asked.”

“That was certainly good of him,” Mrs. Hughes said. 

Thomas was not at all certain of that, but after giving the matter a moment or two’s thought, said nothing. Carson knew as much as the next bloke about Branson’s political views, and if he didn’t smell a rat, was it really Thomas’s place to sow doubts? The dinner was, after all, nothing to do with him. 

“Hm,” Carson said agreeably. “I’ve decided that Branson will act as first footman. Henry, all you’ll need to do is keep an eye on the water glasses, and….”

While Carson drone on about the various minor things Lang would have to—all of which combined amounted to little more than _stand in the corner and try not to fuck up_ —Thomas kept an eye on Lang. It was a slap in the face and no mistake, having his job handed over to some nobody who worked _outdoors_. Lang was taking it with an impassive face a murmured “Yes, Mr. Carson” at appropriate intervals. But Thomas could see his left hand, which was shaking. 

“—and that should be more manageable for you, won’t it?” Carson concluded.

“Yes, Mr. Carson,” Lang said. 

Thomas wondered if it had even _occurred_ to Carson that there might be a reason not to do this in front of everyone. But he didn’t have the luxury of worrying about it for long, because now Carson had turned to him.

“We’ll be getting some of the silver out of storage for the occasion,” he began.

Was he meant to apologize for it being in storage to begin with? He considered saying it was a good thing they were only storing it in the attic, and not Timbuktu, but he suppressed the impulse and said instead, “That’s nice.”

“It will all need to be polished, of course, and since I will be fully occupied making certain that Branson understands how we wait at table in this house, I’ll need you to assist Henry with it.”

 _Oh, fuck no_. Thomas once again suppressed his first impulse. “Will you,” he said, buying time to think of a better answer.

“Her ladyship and Mrs. Hughes assure me that you are committed to making the General’s visit a success.”

Carson did have him there. “You might have mentioned it when we were planning how to get everything done in time,” he pointed out, running through the next day’s schedule mentally. “Not really like you to leave it till the last minute, is it?” 

Mrs. Hughes gave him an arch look, and he hurried on. “All right, I can give you two men in the afternoon, between two and four.” That brief window between tea and afternoon dressing-changes was about the only time he had for last-minute things. “We were going to polish the Bath chairs then, but if you can’t manage, I suppose we’ll just have to hope the General doesn’t look at them.” 

Carson was shaking his head. “Oh, no,” he said jovially. “I’m afraid you’ve misunderstood. We can’t possibly entrust _the family’s_ silver to _your men_. I’ll need you to do it.”

 _Oh, fuck no_. Momentarily caught flat-footed, Thomas gave Carson his best disbelieving stare while he thought up his next move. “I’m afraid that’s not possible, Mr. Carson. I’m busy with my own job. As I said, I can make some men available to you, though I’ll be going to some trouble to do it, but that’s really the best I can do.”

“Mr. Carson,” Bates jumped in, “I’d be happy to help with the silver, and supervise the men that Thomas is able to lend to us, if that would help.”

“Thank you, Mr. Bates,” he said, not taking his eyes off Thomas. “But I have discussed this with her ladyship, and we are agreed that Thomas will do it.”

 _Oh, fuck no_. The worst of it was, he could easily see her doing just that. She had no idea what he did all day when he wasn’t meeting with her, and it was well within Carson’s capabilities to put it to her in such a way that it seemed a reasonable request, instead of the naked attempt to get Thomas under his thumb again that it so obviously was.

Bates tried again. “Mr. Carson, I’m not sure—”

“Thank you, Mr. Bates, but this doesn’t concern you. Thomas?”

“Sergeant Barrow,” he corrected automatically—and that showed him the way out. “I’m afraid her ladyship may have overstepped her authority just a bit.” She was directress of the convalescent home, but that didn’t place her in his chain of command, not exactly. “As you know, I take my orders from Major Clarkson.”

“Who has ordered you to cooperate with her ladyship,” Carson reminded him. 

“Indeed he has,” Thomas agreed. “Still, I believe I’ll check with him about this one.”

“Whatever you think best,” Carson said, in such a way as to make the undercurrent of _it’s your funeral_ as clear as day. “We’ll start immediately after the upstairs luncheon. Don’t be late.”

Naturally, Thomas spent most of the night wondering whether it was, in fact, a bad idea to appeal to Major Clarkson. The Army did not exactly look kindly on people arguing about their orders. Or arguing about who had the right to give them orders. And while Major Clarkson knew what her ladyship could be like, he’d also made pretty clear that handling her ladyship was one of the things he’d chosen Thomas to do. 

He might have knuckled under—he was halfway to convincing himself that having raised the specter of Major Clarkson was enough to make the point that he didn’t actually answer to Carson—except that he genuinely did not have time to do it without obviously neglecting things that really were his responsibility.

Another thing he didn’t really have time for was walking down to the hospital to talk to Major Clarkson, but since the alternative was to try to explain while the Major was making his rounds of the wards—an occasion that her ladyship often dropped in on—he did it anyway.

Between one thing and another, it had been a couple of weeks since he’d been in the hospital. Little about it had changed, but on entering, he was struck by the smell—a heavy mask of disinfectant over an underlayer of rot and the Front. They’d have had a convoy in the last day or two, to fill the places vacated by the patients who’d just moved up to the convalescent home. 

“Sergeant Barrow,” Sister Crawely said, bustling over to him. “What brings you here?”

Thomas generally did ask her a version of that same question when she turned up in his domain, so he supposed it was fair. “I needed to see Major Clarkson.”

“I’ll see if he’s free,” she said importantly.

Once she had bustled off, Thomas concentrated on not poking into things. It was more difficult than he would have guessed—everywhere he looked, he saw things being done differently than he would have done them. An orderly mopping the floor while some others and a nurse were trying to gather up breakfast trays, for instance. The latter chore seemed to have been left a bit late—he’d timed his visit for _after_ the morning busy period—and there was doubtless some good reason for that, but he’d have delayed the floor-mopping, and made the time up some other way. And one nurse making up trays for the mid-day dressing changes—he’d always found it a bit more efficient to have two working at once. She could have had Anderson doing that, instead of mopping the floor. And….

Thomas put himself at parade rest and tried not to notice anything else until Sister Crawley returned. “He can see you,” she reported. “But he’s very busy—the General’s visit, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” Thomas said. “Thanks.”

Major Clarkson did, indeed, look busy. There were a number of files stacked in front of him and a small flock of telephone messages awaiting his attention. “Sergeant,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

Meanwhile, his face said _This had best not be another problem I have to solve_. 

Thomas knew the feeling. Unfortunately, Major Clarkson was in for a disappointment, as Thomas so often was. “Well, sir, there’s a bit of a situation I’m not certain how to handle. I thought I’d best ask you.” 

Major Clarkson took a deep breath. “What’s happened?”

“Mr. Carson—the butler—is insisting that I polish the silver for the General’s visit tomorrow,” Thomas explained. Said out loud, it really didn’t _seem_ like much of a problem. 

“I see. Sergeant, I’m sure you’re a bit busy with your own preparations, but if you can spare a man or two to help him….”

“Yes, sir,” Thomas said. “That was the solution I thought of as well, but Mr. Carson believes that the men can’t be trusted with it. He’s insisting that I do it personally.”

The Major sighed. “That’s not at all appropriate. Tell him that you’ll assign your most trustworthy men to the task.”

“Yes, sir. He informed me that Lady Grantham told him I would do it.”

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Major Clarkson said, “Is there more?”

“No, sir. That was the point where I decided I should ask what you wanted me to do.” He hesitated. “Except that Mr. Bates—his lordship’s valet—offered to do it, or supervise my men, or whatever would help, and Mr. Carson insisted that it had to be me.” He’d hesitated over whether to mention that part, but decided that Major Clarkson ought to know just how unreasonable Carson was being. 

“ _Why_?” Major Clarkson asked.

“He didn’t say, sir,” Thomas said, because explaining to his commanding officer that Carson hated him was where he drew the line. 

Major Clarkson sighed again. “I don’t suppose,” he said carefully, “that you could find a spare hour somehow? Just to keep the peace?”

“I would sir,” Thomas lied, “but it’ll take most of the afternoon. I was planning to talk to the laundry about the changes to the linen schedule, go over the records from the morning dressing-changes, walk round the house with the housekeeper to check that all the special cleaning has been done satisfactorily, do a bit of saluting drill with the men, supervise afternoon dressing changes, be available to you during your afternoon rounds, and attempt to get a firm commitment from her ladyship on what we’re showing the General tomorrow. If you feel that polishing the silver is a better use of my time, of course, I’ll do that instead. Sir.”

“You know that I do not.” The Major’s tone was a bit sharp. 

“Yes, sir,” Thomas said, apologetically. “But I’m not sure exactly what you’d like me to do about it.” That was, after all, why he’d come here. He didn’t need any help to tell that Carson was being unreasonable. 

Major Clarkson sighed. “Send him a man or two. Tell him how sorry you are that you can’t help him personally. I’ll handle Lady Grantham.”

“Yes, sir,” Thomas said. 

Sometimes, he really did love being in the Army. 

The rest of the morning went smoothly. After giving some thought to who he’d offer up to Carson, he finally settled on Wiggins and Griff—Wiggins because he was the most reliable, Griff because proximity to the maids would take the edge off of having to kowtow to Carson. He called them both into his office and explained that they would be spending the afternoon helping Mr. Carson. “I know it’s not a popular assignment, but somebody has to do it. I chose you two because I know I can count on you.”

They both nodded, and Wiggins said, “Sure you can, Sarge.” 

So far, so good. This was the part he’d hesitated over telling them. But it wasn’t fair to send them in blind—and if he managed to put it to them right, they’d appreciate the point he was making to Carson. “He’s going to be in an especially foul mood because he planned on forcing me to do it myself.”

Wiggins actually gasped at that. Good man.

“Major Clarkson nixed that,” Thomas told them, since it didn’t hurt to let them know their CO had his back. “But the whole reason Carson did it is because he doesn’t like that I don’t work for him anymore, and he wanted to take me down a peg.” That was an understatement, but it would do. “He isn’t going to like that I wiggled out of it, and he’s not above taking it out on you.” 

“Like how?” Wiggins asked.

“Like making you do everything over three or four times before he’s happy with it,” Thomas said. “And making insulting remarks about you. Or me, or God knows what. Just say ‘Yes, Mr. Carson,’ and do what he tells you to do. He has you from lunch to tea, and if he wants to waste your time polishing the same thing all afternoon, that’s his look-out.” He paused. “That said, someone from the house—Lang, or Bates, or maybe both of them—will be working with you, and if you fuck around, they’ll tell me. I don’t want any dumb insolence—just don’t worry about it if what he’s telling you to do isn’t going get the job done. Understand?”

“Got it,” Wiggins said. 

Griff looked a little less certain, and Thomas told him, “Follow his lead. You’ll both be fine—I’ll come down at tea-time and get you out.”

Thomas would have liked to send the two of them downstairs by themselves, and deny Carson the opportunity to have a go at him, but he knew that was cowardly. After lunch, he went downstairs with them. The boot-room table was already spread with silver—what struck Thomas as an improbable amount for one dinner, but he followed the advice he’d given his men, and didn’t concern himself with it.

He tapped on the half-open door to Carson’s pantry. Branson was in there, looking suspiciously alert and attentive as Carson held forth. Once again, Thomas followed his own advice. “Mr. Carson,” he began. He could have done without this next bit, but having asked for orders, he had to follow the one he didn’t like, too. “I’m very sorry, but unfortunately my duties won’t permit me to help you with the silver this afternoon.” Carson drew himself up, and Thomas barreled on. “I spoke with Major Clarkson, and he agreed that we should pitch in if we can. I was able to move some things around, and Private Wiggins and Private Griffiths, here, are available to you until tea-time, if you need them.”

Carson barely glanced at them before shaking his head. “I’m afraid that won’t do. As I explained, her ladyship agrees with me that we cannot entrust the silver to strangers.”

Thomas was a little surprised that even Carson would accuse two men of theft, to their faces, for no reason other than that they _worked for Thomas_. He glanced at Wiggins and Griff, who had gone very stiff to either side of him, before saying, “I’m sure you didn’t realize how insulting that sounded, Mr. Carson. These are two of my best men. I’ve gone to some trouble to make them available to you, but if you don’t want them, I have plenty for them to do.” _This is all you’re getting. Take it or leave it._

Carson glowered. “Her ladyship will hear about this,” he warned.

“Yes,” Thomas agreed. “Major Clarkson plans to speak to her about it.”

Carson’s eyes widened. 

“I’m sure she didn’t understand how inappropriate it was of her to promise the use of hospital personnel for household work,” he said kindly. “It’s a shame no one managed to stop her making such an embarrassing mistake.” _You dragged her into this—what did you_ think _was going to happen?_ “Now, do you want these two, or not?”

After much throat-clearing and more eyebrow action, Carson said, “I suppose, since you are determined to have your way, I’ll have to ask Mr. Bates to supervise them.”

“Good idea,” Thomas said. “I knew if you thought about it, you’d come up with a solution.” He looked at Wiggins and Griff again. “Thank you,” he told them, “for agreeing to help Mr. Carson with his work. I’ll look in on you when I can.”

“No problem, Sarge,” Wiggins said. 

“Uh, yeah, you’re welcome,” Griff added. 

#

“You all right, mate?” Wiggins asked Lang—or Henry, or whatever they were supposed to call him. The four of them—he and Griff, and Lang and Mr. Bates—had been polishing silver for a while now. For all of Sergeant Barrow’s carrying on about it, it didn’t seem too bad, as fatigues went. It beat digging graves—or latrines—by a long chalk. It didn’t wind you, for one thing, so you could chat while you did it. Lang, though, had barely said a word, and every now and then, Wiggins noticed his hands shaking.

“I’m fine,” he said. “There’s a lot to get done.” 

Wiggins glanced at the pile of silver still to be done and shrugged. “What do they need all this for, anyway?”

“It’s just for show,” Bates said. 

“I know,” Wiggins said. He understood the point of having things for show; his own Mum had a best tea set that had been her grandmother’s, and nobody ever touched except to dust it. It made sense that really rich people would have more things like that, and having a lot of them, each one would be less important, so maybe they’d use it sometimes. But while a lot of what they were polishing was just fancy versions of normal things—trays and candlesticks and bowls—there were some objects whose functions he couldn’t even begin to guess. “But what’s _that_ for, for instance?” He pointed at a large silver…thing…that none of them had dared touch yet. 

It was basically a bowl, sitting up on little animal feet—lion feet, if Wiggins had to guess—except it also had a sort of roof over it, like the Pagoda at Kew, and half a dozen arms sprouting smaller bowls. It reminded Wiggins of a plant his Nan had, that if you didn’t keep after it, would grow little versions of itself on long vines, complete with roots and everything. 

“It’s an epergne,” Lang said. “You fill it with fruit, and put it in the middle of the table.”

“Oh,” Wiggins said. “Is that why there’s a pineapple on it?” The roof was crowned with a little silver pineapple. 

“Probably,” Lang said, adding, “They don’t eat the fruit. Some houses use wax fruit, but we wouldn’t dream of it here. It must be real, and only the most perfect pieces. For them to throw away.”

Though Lang was sitting right next to them, he sounded very far away. Wiggins glanced over at Bates—who, after all, knew Lang better than they did—to see if he found anything amiss. But Bates only said, “With the wartime shortages, I shouldn’t be surprised if Mrs. Patmore made something out of it, later in the week.”

#

“I’m sorry,” Lady Grantham said, her voice low and quick. “I am not sure that I understand what you are telling me.”

Thomas, halfway through the door to the small library, would have made a quick exit, except that Major Clarkson had spotted him. Even indoors and hatless, military protocol demanded that he brace up and wait to be acknowledged. Running away was right out.

“I’m only saying,” Major Clarkson said carefully, “that using the convalescent home personnel for household work is a delicate matter.”

“General Sir Herbert Strutt is visiting the convalescent home,” Lady Grantham pointed out. “And the silver was put into storage to make room for convalescent home supplies. What’s more, my servants are doing extra work both for the General’s visit and for the ordinary operations of the convalescent home. I fail to see how it could be _inappropriate_ to ask for one small favor in return.”

“I understand,” Major Clarkson said. “And as I said, we are doing our best to help.” He looked over at Thomas again. “Sergeant, were you able to free up a man or two to help Mr. Carson?”

“Yes, sir,” Thomas answered. “Wiggins and Griffiths. They’re at Mr. Carson’s disposal until tea-time, my lady. I mean to go and check how they’re coming along, after Major Clarkson’s rounds.” That was why he’d come looking for the Major in the first place—if he was otherwise occupied, Thomas could have gone downstairs before rounds instead of after.

“Very good,” said Major Clarkson. “I trust that’s satisfactory, my lady?”

She hesitated. “Carson was _concerned_ about having strangers handling some very significant pieces.”

“I’m sure Sergeant Barrow chose reliable men,” Major Clarkson said, with a glance at Thomas.

“Yes, sir. And Mr. Bates offered to supervise them—to allay Mr. Carson’s _concerns_.” 

“That’s very helpful of him,” Lady Grantham said, with a pointed look at Thomas. 

Thomas would have liked to point out that there were good reasons why he wasn’t being helpful in that precise way, but doing so would only make this conversation last longer. 

They got started on rounds, Lady Grantham drifting along with them and chatting to the patients. Thomas’s usual role in rounds was to point out the patients needing to be examined—some were checked daily, others every second day, and some only if the nurse or orderly assigned noticed something the MO ought to see. On top of that, outside of the “serious” ward, the patients rarely stayed put, so it would be very easy to miss someone. Today, he also had to remove dressings for those of Wiggins and Griff’s patients who were being examined, since they were otherwise occupied. 

Rounds finished, Thomas had no excuse to put off going downstairs. He found everyone hard at work in the boot room. Griff and Wiggins jumped to their feet at the sight of him—of course—and Thomas said, “As you were. How’s it coming along?”

“We _thought_ we were nearly done,” Griff said darkly. 

“Mr. Carson thought otherwise,” Bates added. 

Thomas picked up a candlestick and examined it. “Oh, yeah—missed the undersides of the vines, on this one.”

“Might’ve been me,” Wiggins confessed. “I did one of those, and Griff had the other, I think.”

“You both missed them,” Thomas said, after checking the other one. “They’re tricky.” He’d probably polished those candlesticks a hundred times, and missed the undersides of the vines the first fifty. 

Carson, of course, never told you what you’d missed, just made you do it again. 

Thomas examined some more pieces, pointing out the remaining spots of tarnish, and setting aside a few that he couldn’t find anything wrong with. He stopped short when he came to the monstrosity in the middle of the table.

“He’s not really going to use that,” he said flatly. _That_ was a massive Rococo epergne from the reign of George the Third—the most elaborate one in the household inventory. It was absolute hell to polish, and had been out of style since before Carson was born. As a footman, Thomas had spent a whole day each spring polishing it. He’d seen it used once, for the Dowager Countess’s birthday—she liked it, for some reason. 

“That’s the one he said he wanted,” Lang said. 

“We haven’t tackled it yet,” Griff added. “Wigg’s afraid of it.”

As well he should be. “Did Mr. Carson…say anything about it, when he came in to check your work?” Thomas asked. If he had, it would be difficult for him to plausibly claim he hadn’t noticed that someone had gotten out the wrong one. 

“I said we were going to start it next,” Wiggins said. “Before he told us we had to do the rest of it all over. It comes apart, like, so we can each do part of it.”

“Well spotted,” Thomas said. “I polished that thing two or three times before I figured out it came apart.” Carson hadn’t told him _that_ , either. 

“I figured it had to,” Wiggins explained. “Otherwise, how would you do the bottom of the roof?”

“Tongs,” Thomas answered distractedly. “I suppose somebody has to go ask him which one he really means to use,” he said reluctantly. He’d be happy to let Carson make his own mistake, but he knew Carson wasn’t the one who’d have to deal with the consequences. “Otherwise, you’re all going to waste the rest of the afternoon polishing _that_ , and then Lang’s going to be stuck with the real one.” 

Bates asked, “Why are you so sure he doesn’t want to use that one?”

“ _Look_ at it,” Thomas said. 

Bates looked at it, but did not appear enlightened. 

That was a shame, because Thomas had been hoping he’d volunteer to confront Carson on the subject. 

When Bates did not volunteer, Thomas went and knocked on the door to the butler’s pantry. There was no answer, unless Ethel poking her head out of the servants’ hall was an answer. “He’s not in there.”

“Where is he?”

“In the dining room, with Mr. Branson,” she said. 

Fan-fucking-tastic. Thomas had managed to avoid the dining room since coming back to Downton. Not that there was any particular reason to avoid it. He just hadn’t had any need to go in there. And now he _did_ have a reason to go there. 

He found Branson walking around the table with one of the everyday silver trays, and Carson—naturally—criticizing the way he did it. “Sorry to interrupt,” Thomas said. 

“And yet you are,” Carson noted. 

“I was just checking how the lads are getting on with the silver,” he said, and hesitated.

“Yes?”

As a footman, he wouldn’t have dared question Carson’s table-setting plan—no matter how obviously wrong it was. As Wardmaster of the convalescent home, it wasn’t even remotely his business what Carson chose to put on the table. 

On the other hand, after coming all the way up here, and—as Carson had pointed out—interrupting, he had to say _something_. “Couldn’t help but notice the epergne,” he said. “I wondered if the wrong one might have been brought down. By mistake.” 

“I fail to see how that is any concern of yours.”

 _Because you made it my concern, you fucking wanker_. “As I said, I do have plenty of work for my men to do. If you are not, in fact, using the George the Third epergne for the General’s dinner, then they’re just about done.” 

“They are not,” said Carson. “Their work so far has been substandard. I doubt they’ll be finished before dinner.”

“You have them until tea-time,” Thomas reminded him. Carson had not, he noticed, given him an answer about the epergne. He was tempted to say that, if his men polished it and it wasn’t on the table for the General’s dinner, he’d…. 

There wasn’t anything he _could_ do, was the problem. Instead, he said, “Manage their time as you like. I just thought that if there had been a mistake, with the epergne, it would be better to catch it now.”

“Thank you, Thomas,” Carson said, in obvious dismissal. 

Thomas gave up. Unfortunately, now that he’d involved himself in the Riddle of the Epergne, he had to go back downstairs and explain that he hadn’t gotten a real answer. 

“So…what do you want us to do?” Wiggins asked. 

It was, Thomas reminded himself, just as fair for Wiggins to ask him that as it had been for him to ask Major Clarkson to settle the other thing. “Start with the things I showed you on the other pieces, and then do as much of the epergne as you have time for,” he decided. “That is,” he added to Lang and Bates, “unless you have a better idea.” They were the ones who’d be left holding the baby after tea-time, after all. 

Bates looked over at Lang, who was polishing the handle of a sauceboat with far more focus than the task deserved. “That’s fine,” Bates decided. 

Thomas had hoped to have time for a smoke before his walk round the house with Mrs. Hughes, but that plan was shot, so he fetched her. He managed to keep the talk focused on the task at hand until they got to the recreation room, where she said, “You know that Mr. Carson is only anxious that the General sees us looking our best.”

“Yes,” Thomas said, examining a newly-polished bookcase. 

“He doesn’t like having all these strangers in the house, and everything at sixes and sevens,” she added.

“I gathered.” Thomas turned his attention to a globe in a brass stand. “We ought to polish the fittings on that.”

She glanced at it. “I suppose it is due. Mr. Carson has never liked seeing things change, and that’s a fact.”

“I’ll ask the men on the night shift to do it. If they have time after they do the wheelchairs.”

“Thank you. If they don’t manage it, I’ll try to have one of the maids do it in the morning. I’m only saying that all of this is difficult for him.”

 _Difficult_. Thomas knew he ought to say something like, _I’m sure it is_ , or _I understand_. What he _wanted_ to say was something like, _I have been watching people die for three years. I know what_ difficult _is._ He settled on, “The war has been difficult for a lot of people.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Hughes conceded. By now they had worked their way around to the windows, freshly washed by Thomas’s men. “But— _Ethel!”_

Thomas now noticed that the woman who’d been making rather a meal of tucking a tartan rug around a patient’s legs, out on the terrace, was Ethel. She jumped away. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Hughes,” she said, hurrying inside. “I didn’t want Major Bryant to catch a chill.”

“Very helpful, I’m sure,” Mrs. Hughes said icily. 

Thomas stepped out onto the terrace. “Major,” he said. “Are you comfortable now? If there’s anything else you need, I’ll send one of the orderlies over.”

“Er, no,” he said. “Quite comfortable, thank you.”

“Very good, sir,” Thomas said. “If you do need anything else, please ask one of the medical staff. The housemaids are not trained in patient care, and they have their own duties to attend to.” 

“Of course, Sergeant. I didn’t mean to get the girl in trouble.” He picked up his newspaper, in obvious dismissal, and Thomas—lacking any alternatives—went back inside. 

“Sorry about that,” he told Mrs. Hughes. “I’ve spoken to Major Bryant more than once, about bothering the maids, but as he’s a Major, there’s only so much I can do.”

Mrs. Hughes shook her head. “Ethel does nothing to discourage him. The rest of the girls have the sense to keep their distance.”

They finished the walk-round without finding any major problems—and, more importantly, without Mrs. Hughes bringing up Carson again. 

The next thing after that was checking on Mrs. Coulter in the laundry. He’d asked her to have the linen finished early for the next day, since the shelves looked so much neater when they were fully stocked. She’d protested mightily before agreeing to do it, and Thomas had set aside a half-hour to listen to it all again, but was pleasantly surprised when she reported that they were on schedule. “We’ll hang the last of it in the airing room overnight, and iron it first thing in the morning,” she assured him. 

Thomas thanked her and wandered back over to the house, wondering what to do with his unexpected free time. The next thing on his list was rescuing Griff and Wiggins from Carson’s clutches, but he couldn’t do that early—he’d promised them to Carson until tea-time. He could go in and check how they were doing—but he really, really didn’t want to. Or he could go up to his office and try to have a smoke—but what were the odds he’d make it the whole way there without finding something that needed his attention?

He sat down on the crate by the door instead, and lit a cigarette. It seemed like a long time since he’d sat there. 

And it seemed he wasn’t the only one to notice. Daisy, coming out with a bowl of scraps, asked, “What are you doing out here?”

“Had a spare minute,” he answered. 

“Wish I did,” she groused, dumping the scraps into the bin. “We’re run off our feet, with the General’s dinner on top of everything else.”

“Typical,” Thomas said. 

Daisy, putting the lie to her words, sat on the crate next to him. “And _William_ ,” she added.

Thomas frowned. “What about him?”

“He’s coming tomorrow,” she said, her tone suggesting he should have already known this. 

Now that she mentioned it, Thomas vaguely remembered hearing that William planned to stop here at the end of his embarkation leave. “That’s just what we need.” 

“Of course I want to wish him well,” Daisy went on. “But…what if he has something else in mind?”

Thomas suddenly remembered a similar conversation with Madge—or had it been Maud?—years ago, when her boyfriend joined up. But he couldn’t imagine _William_ , of all people, expecting something like _that_. “What do you mean?”

“What if he _proposes_?”

Oh, yes. That. Of course.

She went on, “Mrs. Patmore says I should just say yes, and then after the war’s over I can change my mind. If I want to. But isn’t that dishonest? Saying yes when I’m not sure I mean it?”

Now Thomas wished he’d gone to his office. “Maybe,” he said slowly, trying to buy himself some time to think of an answer that wasn’t _He’s probably going to die anyway, so does it matter what you tell him?_ “You could just tell him that,” he finally suggested. “That you aren’t sure. I mean, you wouldn’t be saying no.”

He hadn’t said no to Lieutenant Courtenay. “We don’t know how much longer the war’s going to last,” Thomas added. “And it changes people. He can’t be sure that what he wants now is what he’ll want then.” If he was even still alive to want anything. “And neither can you, so….so just promise to be his friend, and talk about the future when….” _You know if he’s going to have one._ “When it comes.”

Daisy looked thoughtful. “I could do that, couldn’t I?”

“Yeah.” But there was one way—besides the obvious—that Daisy and William were different from him and Courtenay. Courtenay wasn’t going to France. “Unless you think that, if he’s killed, you’ll regret not having said yes.”

She slumped. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” Thomas stood up, hoping she’d read it as a dismissal. There wasn’t much further they could go on this subject before he had to think about _Peter_ , and he wasn’t going to do that right before a confrontation with Carson. 

Fortunately, Daisy stood up too. “I should get back. Thank you.” 

Thomas still had a few minutes left before tea-time, so he wandered aimlessly around the courtyard for a bit, smoking a second cigarette.

Inside, he found the four silver-polishers facing a much-diminished mountain of silver—and no Carson.

“He was in here a few minutes ago,” Wiggins explained. “He took away the things he was satisfied with. These all have to be done again, apparently.”

Griff added, “He said we were to come back down after our tea and keep working.”

“You aren’t doing that,” Thomas said. “Sorry,” he added to Bates and Lang. “Maybe he’ll start being reasonable once I’m not involved.” 

“Maybe,” said Bates, dubiously.

#

“I admit,” Bates said, sitting down next to Anna for tea, “I didn’t know what I was getting myself in for, agreeing to help with the silver.”

“A battle of wills between Thomas and Mr. Carson?” she asked. That had seemed fairly obvious to her.

“I knew it would be that,” Mr. Bates said. “But….” He shook his head. “The worst of it is, _Thomas_ is actually being reasonable.” 

Mr. Bates’s expression was almost comically affronted. “If he wanted to calm Mr. Carson down, he could have just done what he asked,” she pointed out.

“He really couldn’t,” Mr. Bates said, shaking his head. “He’s a sergeant now. If he lets himself be pushed around like that, he’ll lose the respect of his men.”

Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes came in then, and they all stood up. Once they were seated again, Mr. Bates continued, “That’s the other big surprise—they do respect him, and like him.” 

Anna had to admit that was a bit of a surprise to her, too. But she hadn’t forgotten what Thomas had said about Mr. Carson being, well, _bad_ at managing people. She wouldn’t put it past Thomas to have become good at it out of spite. 

#

“Stand easy,” Thomas said. “Carter, make sure you keep your elbow up. You’re saluting, not trying to keep the sun out of your eyes. Let’s try it again, and this time we’re all going to salute at the same time. Attention!” 

They snapped to.

“Hut!”

They saluted—very nearly simultaneously, though Wiggins was a bit early, and Palmer a bit late. 

“ _Thomas!”_ Carson came barreling around the path that led to the servants’ entrance. 

Thomas noted which of the men managed to stay at attention despite this distraction, while also wondering if, perhaps, the house was on fire. But if it were, surely one of the nurses—who didn’t take part in saluting drill—would come out to get them. “Sergeant Barrow,” he said, adding a quick, “At ease,” to the men. “Mr. Carson, can this wait?”

“No, it cannot. Those men were to return and finish the job that they started.”

“Mr. Carson, I was very clear that they were at your disposal until tea-time,” Thomas said. “Now, if you don’t mind….”

“I beg your pardon, _Thomas_ , but I do mind. The task assigned to them is not finished.”

“That,” Thomas said deliberately, “is not my concern. Charlie.”

Carson actually _gasped_. It was glorious, except that Thomas could have done without his entire section standing there watching. 

“Now, are you going to leave, or do I need to drill my men somewhere else?”

“I am the butler in this house,” Carson reminded him. “You have no right to tell me to leave.”

“That’s right, I don’t.” Everyone else standing here, though, was a different story. He turned back to the men. “Hut! All right, we haven’t practiced this, but let’s try ‘form fours.’”

They managed to get formed up, with only a few missteps, and Thomas marched them around to the side of the house. He half-feared—and maybe half-hoped—that Carson would follow them, screaming like a fishwife, but he did not. They finished their saluting drill without incident and went inside to do dressing changes—where it became apparent that Carson had come up with a much better plan.

Colonel Grantham was waiting in the front hall. “Sergeant,” he said. “Could I have a word?”

“Yes, sir,” Thomas said, because he had absolutely no choice in the matter. He sent his the men on, and followed the Colonel into the small library. Carson was there, an expression of grave displeasure on his face. 

Splendid. 

Carson closed the door behind them, and Colonel Grantham said, “Carson tells me that you spoke to him disrespectfully.”

 _That_ was unexpected—Thomas had figured it was going to be something about the silver. Now that all of his prepared responses were useless, he stalled for time by saying, “I’m sorry he feels that way, sir.”

Carson made a sort of strangled noise. Colonel Grantham gave him a curious look. “I’m sure you understand that, even though you aren’t working under Carson at the moment, you must still treat him with the respect due to his position in this household.”

“Yes, sir.” Was it even worth trying to defend himself? Probably not. “I’m sorry that he troubled you with this. But I have asked him several dozen times to call me ‘Sergeant Barrow’ at least in front of my men.” 

Colonel Grantham looked at Carson again. “Why, what has he been calling you?”

“‘Thomas,’” Thomas said. 

The Colonel sighed. “Carson?”

“Yes, my lord?”

“Call him Sergeant Barrow.” 

Carson hesitated. “Yes, my lord.”

Colonel Grantham turned back to Thomas. “Sergeant?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Call him Mr. Carson.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thank you,” Colonel Grantham said, with exaggerated patience. “Now, is there anything else?”

Thomas was half-tempted to ask him to also tell Carson not to interrupt when he was drilling the men—he had a feeling that Colonel Grantham would consider that offense a particularly outrageous one—but given the sarcasm dripping from the question, he decided he had better not. “No, sir.”

Carson, evidently having made a similar calculation, echoed, “No, my lord.”

“Dismissed.”

Thomas left, with Carson hard on his heels. As soon as they were out of earshot, Carson said, “I don’t know what you think you’re playing at—”

“I’m not playing. Mr. Carson. I’m trying to do my job.”

“How dare you speak to his lordship that way?”

Thomas stared at him, mentally reviewing everything he’d said in the last few minutes. There was really only one thing Carson could be talking about. “You mean…calling him ‘sir’?”

“What else would I mean?”

 _You could mean anything, because you’re out of your mind_ , Thomas did not say. He also did not say, _I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re both wearing the King’s uniform._ Nor _, He was there too; don’t you think that if he objected, he’d have said so?_ “I asked.”

“What?”

“When I first got back. I asked Mr. Bates to ask his lordship whether I should call him ‘sir’ or ‘my lord.’ I don’t think he cares much either way, but I knew it would upset you if I got it wrong. So.”

Carson looked…confused. Or possibly dyspeptic. It was hard to tell, with Carson.

“Is that all?” he asked. He gave Carson a second or two to answer, and when he didn’t, got back to work. 

#

“So what _has_ been going on downstairs?” Robert asked, as Bates laid out his evening clothes. “I gather Carson and Thomas—Sergeant Barrow, I should say—are at each other’s throats?”

Bates hesitated. “I don’t like to bear tales, my lord.”

“No, of course not. But I had to settle one of their squabbles today.” He’d certainly formed the impression it was one of many, at any rate.

“Which one?” Bates asked. 

That answered that question. “Apparently Thomas—Sergeant Barrow—called Carson ‘Charlie.’” 

Bates nodded. “I heard about that one, my lord.” He held out two pairs of cufflinks. Robert pointed to one. “Did they tell you what Thomas—Barrow—was doing at the time?”

Something too outrageous for Carson to describe, apparently. “What?”

“Saluting drill,” Bates said. 

Robert turned his head to stare at him. “ _Really?”_

Bates nodded. “The men couldn’t believe it. In the middle of drill, he just comes up and starts scolding their sergeant.” 

Robert could hardly believe it either. “Are you certain?” He knew Carson wasn’t a military man, but surely he’d understand that some things just weren’t done. 

“I only had the story third-hand,” Bates admitted. “One of the maids heard some of the men talking about it.”

“Perhaps there was a misunderstanding,” Robert said hopefully.

“Perhaps,” Bates said, but he didn’t sound as though he thought it likely.

#

Thomas wished he was surprised to go down a bit before dinner and find Lang sitting at the servants’ hall table polishing an epergne. It was the palm-motif mid-Victorian one—a much more reasonable choice for the occasion. 

Glancing up at Thomas, Lang muttered, “Mr. Carson has made some changes to the table-setting plan.”

“Did he, now?” Thomas picked up a polishing cloth and one of the little silver baskets that hung from the arms of the epergne. “I’d never have guessed.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Lang said, nodding at the piece Thomas had started polishing.

“I’m not doing anything else at the moment,” Thomas pointed out. “How much of what you did today _is_ he actually using?”

“The trays,” Lang said. “The soup tureen. One of the sauceboats. One pair of candlesticks.” 

“The square ones, with the lozenges,” Thomas guessed. 

“How did you know?”

“I always hated polishing the ones with the vines.” He wouldn’t swear that Carson knew that—he might have just picked out the things that were the fiddliest to do. “I’m sorry you were caught in the middle of all that.”

“It’s all right,” Lang said.

They had the epergne nearly finished by the time Daisy and Mrs. Patmore started bringing the dinner in. O’Brien had been watching Thomas the whole time, a crafty look on her face, but waited until Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes had made their entrance to say, “I thought polishing silver was beneath you now, Thomas?”

“I’m not sure where you got that idea,” Thomas said. 

He watched Carson out of the corner of his eye, to see how that landed, but Carson didn’t react, and in fact seemed uncharacteristically subdued for the rest of the meal. Then, at the end of it, when he and Mrs. Hughes stood up to go, he cleared his throat and said, “Sergeant Barrow. If I could see you in my pantry, please.”

Thomas briefly considered refusing, but suspected that if he did, he’d be accused of antagonizing him. “Certainly, Mr. Carson.”

He went, but he sat—uninvited—in the chair across from Carson’s desk, his posture deliberately casual. 

Carson stood behind his own chair for a moment and glowered. Then he cleared his throat. Then he sat down, and cleared his throat some more. Thomas was starting to think about pointing out that he did have a few things he wanted to do before bedtime, when Carson finally said, “His lordship informs me that I was…remiss in interrupting when you were drilling the men.”

Thomas had his doubts that _remiss_ was the word Lord Grantham had chosen. Part of him desperately wanted to know what word he _had_ used—disrespectful? Insolent? _Churlish_? Each possibility was more thrilling than the last. But he considered the likely result of trying to drag it out of Carson, and simply said, “I thought so, too.” 

Carson glowered at him some more. “Well,” he said. 

After a very long wait, Thomas said, “Is that all?” Again, he waited for Carson to answer. When he didn’t, he stood up. “You can tell his lordship that I appreciate his apology.”

He left. It hadn’t been an apology, of course—but he was very nearly certain that that was what Carson was _meant_ to be doing.

#

Seeing Thomas head out to the courtyard from Mr. Carson’s pantry, Anna followed him. He was, unsurprisingly, sitting on a crate smoking a cigarette. 

“Everything all right?” Anna asked him. 

He nodded. “Just grand,” he said. 

Settling onto the crate next to him, she said, “It was nice of you to help Henry with the silver.”

He hunched his shoulders and said sulkily, “I can be nice.”

“I know you can,” she pointed out. “That’s what I just said.” 

He muttered something about not having to sound “so surprised about it.”

“I’m sorry; who was that making a fuss about _not_ polishing silver?” she asked, teasingly.

He gave her a sharp look. “It weren’t about the silver.” 

“No,” she sighed. “I suppose it wasn’t.” 

She’d seen this happen before, of course—they all had. Thomas got stroppy, and Mr. Carson put him in his place. 

But this time, Thomas wasn’t playing his part. If he’d just show a bit of deference, Mr. Carson would stop, and the whole thing would blow over. “He just wants to remind you who’s in charge,” she said.

Thomas opened his mouth and closed it again. He inhaled deeply on his cigarette, and said, “Do you really want to argue about this now?”

“Does everything have to be an argument with you?” she countered.

He smoked some more. “Not everything. But this does, yeah.” 

#

“Noooooooooooooo!”

Thomas woke instantly as the bloodcurdling scream echoed through the sleeping house. He’d grabbed his dressing gown and lit a candle before the echo died away, thinking muzzily that it must be one of the patients, a battle-dream, and what was he doing sleeping on duty?

But he wasn’t on duty, and the source of the scream was much nearer than the wards, three floors away. More screams followed, and other doors were opening even as he stepped into the corridor. There was a commotion behind the door to the women’s side, and the electric lights came on. “What in heaven’s name is happening?” someone asked. Mrs. Hughes, he thought.

“It’s Lang,” he said. “Battle dream. It happens.”

Carson elbowed past him and into Lang’s room, as Lang wailed, “No! I can’t—I can’t do it—”

“Henry,” Carson said. “You’re having a bad dream. Wake up.” 

Carson went over—to shake Lang, it looked like—and Thomas took a step into the room. Everyone else—including the women—crowded in behind him.

“It’s only a dream, Henry,” Carson said firmly. “Stop carrying on.”

Lang, half-awake, clutched at him. “Soldiers,” he said. “They’re soldiers, but I can’t go back. No matter what, Mr. Carson. I can’t go back.”

Carson looked around as though for someone to rescue him from this situation. “No one’s asking you to, Henry.”

Thomas turned to the rest of the crowd. “Clear out. It’s not a free show.” 

O’Brien, terrifying in mob-cap and nightgown, drew herself up, but Mrs. Hughes said, “He won’t want us seeing him like this.” She began ushering them out, saying something about “give him some privacy.”

“Bates, you can stay,” Thomas said. Setting the candle down, he went over to Lang and, catching Carson’s eye, jerked his head toward the door. 

Carson drew himself up as well, but apparently realized that he was being told to do what he wanted to do anyway, and made a swift exit. “You’re all right, Lang,” Thomas said, taking him by the arm. “Come over here and sit down.” He put Lang into the room’s single chair and, seeing that he’d sweated through his pyjamas, reached toward Lang’s dressing gown. Bates handed it to him. “You’re all right,” Thomas repeated, tossing it over him. “Just a dream.”

“Was it?” Lang asked, his eyes wide. “A dream? Oh, thank God.” He slumped, his shoulders shaking with sobs. 

“Yeah,” Thomas said, tossing the bedclothes back to air them a bit. “Pretty bad one, sounds like.” 

“It was…I had to…the dinner, and…I can’t go back.” 

“I know,” Thomas said. Medical opinion, he knew, was divided on the subject of whether it did shell-shock patients any good to talk about battle dreams. Major Winthrop, the psychiatrist at the Casualty Clearing Station, had been against it. _Morbid self-indulgence_ , he called it. But some of the other blokes who wrote about it in the RAMC Journal said that talking about them robbed them of their power. 

Thomas didn’t particularly want to hear about whatever horrors were in Lang’s head, but that was neither here nor there. “You want to talk about it?” he asked reluctantly.

Lang shook his head. 

_Thank God_. “All right. Here.” He got his cigarettes out of his dressing-gown pocket and handed Lang one. Opening the window a little, he perched on the sill and lit one of his own. Begrudgingly, he held the case in Bates’s general direction, but Bates waved it off. “Best not to try to get back to sleep right away,” he explained, handing Lang the lighter. “It’s the adrenaline. Takes some time to clear your system.” 

“It does?” Lang asked, his hands shaking as he tried to light the cigarette. 

“Yeah,” Thomas said, taking the lighter back from him and sparking it. “Makes you shake, too,” he added, holding the flame to Lang’s cigarette. “And makes you taste blood. Or pennies. Some blokes say it tastes like pennies.” With those three things, he had exhausted his knowledge about adrenaline. “By the time you’ve smoked that, you’ll feel better.”

Obediently, Lang took a pull. “I don’t remember that. From….”

From the CCS, he meant. “I learnt it later. MO back at the ambulance unit.” Captain Allenby, of course. The same place he’d learned the importance of sleight-of-hand in modern medicine. He hadn’t actually _said_ that the cigarette would help, because it wouldn’t. The time it took to smoke it was what mattered. But if Lang thought otherwise, that wouldn’t hurt. 

“I didn’t know that, either,” Bates said. 

“They discovered it not long before the war,” Thomas explained. “Adrenaline, I mean. In monkey kidneys, I think. But that might’ve been something else.” Captain Allenby had told him about a lot of medical things, and he hadn’t always paid much attention. 

They talked a bit more, about nothing in particular, and by the time Lang had finished his cigarette—he wasn’t a quick smoker—he pronounced himself ready to go back to sleep.

Thomas nodded and said, “You should be all right now. But you can come get me if you need to.”

They left, Thomas just remembering to collect his candle on the way out. A good thing, since someone had turned out the electric lights in the corridor. Bates, standing outside the door to his own room, hesitated. “What….” He shook his head. 

“My job,” Thomas said, and went back to bed.

Lang made it through the rest of the night without waking them all up screaming again, but at breakfast, he was noticeably pale and shaky. The way that everyone was conspicuously not looking at him probably didn’t help. 

But apart from asking if he was all right—to which Lang replied the most unconvincing, “Yes, thank you,” that Thomas had ever heard—he didn’t know what else to do, so he turned his attention to the final preparations for the General’s visit—and the regular work of the convalescent home, of course, which didn’t stop just because a General was coming to dinner. 

Thankfully—and in contrast to the previous day—Carson made himself scarce, at least where Thomas and his men were concerned. Thomas managed to get from breakfast to the time of the General’s arrival—just after tea—without seeing him.

Shortly before the General was due to arrive, Thomas went through the house rounding up the orderlies and nurses—apart from the three who’d been assigned to stay inside with the patients—and sending them outside. 

When he joined them, though, he urgently wished that he had delegated that task to someone else. Because Thomas’s men were lined up, neat as you please—on the opposite side of the drive from where Thomas had wanted them. “What are you doing on this side?” Thomas hissed to Wiggins.

The expected answer came. “Mr. Carson told us to stand over here.” 

Of course he fucking well had. Major Clarkson and the family hadn’t arrived yet, and they still had a minute or two before the General was due, so Thomas hurried over to Carson, who was lined up with the rest of the servants across from Thomas’s men. “We need to switch sides.”

“I beg your pardon?” Carson asked.

“My men need to be on this side,” Thomas explained quickly. “If we’re on that side, the way the car’s coming, we have to salute with our left hands.”

Carson stared at him. 

Christ, was he going to make him say it? “My left arm doesn’t go that high.” 

Carson opened his mouth to say something, but what it would have been, Thomas didn’t know. The family were arriving, and taking their places in front of the door. 

Thomas might still have considered an undignified scramble for position—The Family were watching, but none of them was a General—if he hadn’t caught the sound of car tires crunching up the graveled drive. 

For lack of any better option, Thomas put himself just off Colonel Grantham’s right shoulder, between him and Carson. The two officers, standing in the center of the lineup, would salute with their right hands, so it wouldn’t look too out-of-place if Thomas did, too. 

Unfortunately, they’d practiced saluting on the command _Hut_ instead of _eyes left_ —the shorter command made it easier to get them all doing it at once. And now that the car was coming into view, there was no way to remind them that they were supposed to use their left hands. The car neared, and Thomas shouted, “Hut!”—louder than he would have otherwise—and hoped for the best.

Standing at attention, he couldn’t quite see what they were doing—except that there was too much sound and movement for it to be going smoothly. As the car neared them, Thomas looked out of the corner of his eye and saw that about half of the men were saluting—correctly—with their left hands, the others as they had practiced, with their right. One switched while Thomas was watching.

At last, the car passed. “Hut!” he shouted again. The men stood at attention—at least _that_ part went well—and Carson turned his head to glower at Thomas.

The next bit was easy—they just had to stand there like waxworks while the General got out of the car and the officers exchanged salutes, and the visitors were introduced to the ladies. No one messed that up, but it gave Thomas plenty of time to think about how he wished he were dead. 

That business finished, the officers and family started going inside. Captain Crawley lingered, talking to Mary, and perforce, Thomas lingered too—as NCO, he was supposed to be bringing up the rear in this procession. 

“Crawley!” the General bellowed. 

Matthew hurried in, and Thomas followed. Fortunately, the tour party hadn’t gotten far. They’d planned to linger in the main hall for a bit, Lady Grantham talking about the house and their decision to offer it as a convalescent home, to give the nurses and orderlies time to duck in via the side door. In each ward, there were to be two or three doing various medical things: here a nurse making a bed, there an orderly taking someone’s temperature and pulse, and so on. 

All for show, of course: the only thing that would normally be done at this time of day was dressing changes. Those, they had done a couple of hours early—except for Captain Smiley, who no longer needed a dressing on the stump of his left arm, but had gamely agreed to play opposite Nurse Crawley in the “Changing a Dressing” sketch, as it was out of the question for the General to be shown a wound that was bleeding or oozing. 

That was one of two star turns in their little production, the other being “Physical Therapy.” There, Nurse Bellamy would encourage Captain Ames as he walked using the handrails. Similarly to Captain Smiley, he had progressed beyond that exercise in his real physical therapy some time ago, but was reprising the role, because the person playing The Patient had to be fit enough to stand there and wait for his cue. 

It was a good thing they hadn’t tried to time the thing out to the minute, because the General didn’t know the script, and kept wandering off to talk to various patients. Thomas had coached the nurses and orderlies on what to say if this occurred—mostly descriptions of the work they were demonstrating—but the patients had to ad-lib. Thomas only hoped that they weren’t saying anything too damaging. 

He did notice a few—officers he knew had survived the Somme—rapidly but discreetly leaving the room when the General entered it. Thomas was mostly glad that they were too well-bred to make a scene, but a small part of him wished that someone would stand up and say that the man they were all making a fuss over had orchestrated the death of thousands.

No one did, of course. In fact, the rest of the show went off without a hitch. And since Thomas had few lines in the production—and most of the ones he did have were “Yes, sir”—he had plenty of time to stew about what Carson would have to say about the foul-up at the beginning. Something scathing, of course. Probably involving the honor of the house, and perhaps an accusation that Thomas had sabotaged the thing on purpose—never mind that Carson deserved at least as much of the blame as he did. It was perfectly reasonable for him to have assumed that the men would stand where they always stood, and the women opposite, rather than the household staff to one side, and the convalescent home people opppsite. He might even say so, when Carson got started. 

It wasn’t until about halfway through the tour that it occurred to him that his men were probably wondering what _he_ was going to have to say about it. And as much as Thomas wished he could just pretend the whole humiliating incident hadn’t happened, he was going to have to say _something_. He couldn’t just leave them waiting for the hammer to fall.

But what _was_ he supposed to say about it? Having just spent so much time imagining what Carson would say, he wondered if he could use some of that. _I beg your pardon_ , he could say, _I thought I was dealing with trained soldiers. I had no idea that_ saluting _would be too much for you. As I was_ mistaken _, we’ll have an hour of saluting drill every morning from now until doomsday._

No—he wasn’t going to do what Carson would do. In fact, he’d come closer to the mark by doing the _opposite_ of what Carson would do.

By the time the tour ended, Thomas had the beginnings of a plan. The officers and ladies went to change for the dinner party, and Thomas summoned his men to the orderlies’ room-cum-Wardmaster’s office. 

Tossing his cap onto his desk, Thomas said, “Well—that first bit was kind of a shit-show, but the rest was all right.” That was Part One of Not-Carson. Carson never said anything about the parts you got right. “Everybody was where they were supposed to be, uniforms in good nick, wards tidy, all that.” Possibly the reason Carson never did that was that it felt kind of stupid, listing the ways you’d managed _not_ to fuck up. 

He moved on. “I could’ve done without the bit where we all looked like we forgot how saluting works, but at least nobody died.” Now the second thing that Carson would never say. “Mr. Carson and I didn’t sort out in advance who was going to stand where, and we should have.” That was even harder to say than he’d thought, but the roof didn’t fall in or anything. “Now, as you know, we have to do it all over again when the General leaves, and I’d like to get it right on the second try.” There was a murmur of agreement. “I’d also like a smoke, so we’ll take a ten-minute break before we form up out front for saluting drill. Dismissed.”

Thomas had been prepared for some protest—this time of day was normally quiet, and after all the extra work they’d put in, preparing for the General’s visit, they could have reasonably expected to be left to their own devices—but they just started reaching for cigarettes and jostling for places to sit. 

It would have been tempting fate to leave them with no opportunity to grouse behind his back, though, so Thomas left them in possession of the room, and nipped out front for his own cigarette break.

While he smoked it, he indulged in improbable—but highly satisfying—speculation about what might happen if he went on the offensive, instead of waiting for Carson to say something about the General’s arrival. What if _he_ accused _Carson_ of fouling it up deliberately, to make Thomas and his men look bad? Thomas could point out—truthfully—that since Carson had interrupted their drill, he knew perfectly well which side of the door they were planning to stand on. It might even be a sore spot to poke, since his lordship had, apparently, had words with Carson about the interruption. 

Carson might attempt to defend himself—how many times had Thomas attempted the same?—by saying that he hadn’t known where they stood made any difference. (It might even be true.) But then Thomas could say—

The perfect retort came easily. _Your abysmal ignorance of the most minor points of military etiquette is no excuse_. He couldn’t quite remember what he had done, to prompt Carson to say that to him—minus the word “military” of course. It might have been the time he’d announced a Viscount’s younger son as “Lord” rather than “the Honorable.” _What a shame there is no one in this house whom you might have consulted_. There, he could look pointedly at Lang, and perhaps even Bates. 

He could even slam his drill manual down in front of Carson, the way Carson had slammed _Debrett’s_ in front of him.

Except that he might not get it back, and it was the one the Wardmaster had given to him, so he didn’t want to lose it. Also, he’d look like he’d lost his mind. Carson was the only one in the house who could get away with those kind of histrionics. Downstairs, at least. 

When the men came out, Thomas put those thoughts aside and focused on running drill. Now that they all knew which hand they were supposed to be using, it didn’t take long to get it right. 

After dismissing the men, Thomas did another walk through the wards—a real one, this time, checking on the patients and making sure that nothing of substance had been set aside while they were busy putting on a show for the General.

Coming down the back stairs after checking the second-floor rooms, he saw Carson frog-marching Branson, trailed by Lang and Anna—the latter carrying a soup tureen on a tray. 

It was the tureen that piqued Thomas’s interest. It wasn’t much of a surprise if Branson had planned something—Thomas imagined something in the line of an impassioned speech about Ireland or the draft or God knew what—and naturally Carson would have hustled him out of the dining room the moment he opened his mouth. But why wouldn’t Lang and Anna have stayed to serve the soup? 

It wasn’t, of course, any of his business. But he could always claim he thought they might need another more-or-less able-bodied man to deal with…whatever was happening. He followed. 

At the bottom of the stairs, Branson protested, “All right, all right—there’s no need to be so rough!” 

Thomas was inclined to agree—Carson was now twisting Branson’s arm up behind his back—but Carson exploded, “There’s every need—to stop a murder!”

By now, momentum had carried them into the kitchen—though why Carson thought that was a good place to take a murderer, Thomas had no idea. Personally, he’d have chosen the scullery. Fewer potential weapons.

But Branson, looking genuinely shocked, said, “Murder? What do you mean, _murder_?”

Anna shrieked, “You were going to assassinate the General!”

Before Thomas had time to consider whether or not he wished Branson had succeeded, Branson denied it again, and sulkily explained his real plan—to douse the Hero of the Somme in a mixture of oil, ink, sour milk, and cowpat. “He’d have needed a bath right enough, but not a coffin!”

Now _that_ Thomas wouldn’t have minded seeing, except— “Who did you think was going to get stuck cleaning it up?” he asked scathingly. “Idiot.” The General would have the stink washed off in ten minutes, but the maids, and the General’s batman, would be dealing with it all night, at least. 

Carson took a moment’s break from glaring at Branson to turn a withering look on Thomas. Whatever he might have said was interrupted by Daisy rushing in with a large cooking pot, which evidently contained the actual soup. And as quick as that, the topic turned from murder—or at least vandalism, or assault, or whatever you’d call what Branson had been planning to do—to the question of how they were going to serve the soup.

The answer to the first part of that weighty problem came from Mrs. Hughes, who banged down a slightly-more-presentable cooking pot with a surprising, “It’s not been heated, but to hell with that!”

Before Thomas could fully appreciate this unprecedented development in the housekeeper’s vocabulary, William appeared from God-knows-where and said, “I’ll serve, Mr. Carson, I don’t mind.” As everyone turned to him with expression of surprise and gratitude, the revolting suck-up continued, “Who knows when I’ll have the chance again?”

After a moment of stunned silence, Carson said, “Would you? Would you really?”

As they all bustled about finding William some gloves and getting the soup onto a tray, Thomas asked Anna, “When did he turn up?”

“A little while ago,” she said. “I’m sure you could help too, if you wanted.”

“I really couldn’t,” he answered.

By now, everyone else seemed to have forgotten about Branson, who was standing on the opposite side of the kitchen looking confused by the turn things had taken. If he had any sense, he’d take advantage of the general preoccupation with the dinner party to make a run for it—but everything about his plan demonstrated that he didn’t have any sense. 

Skirting around the edge of the crowd, Thomas made his way over to him. “What in _hell_ were you thinking?” he asked, in a harsh whisper. 

Branson must have been waiting to be asked about his motivation, because he burst out with, “I was thinking that the General is an incompetent butcher. He doesn’t deserve to be—”

“I don’t care,” Thomas interrupted. “What was the point? What did you think was going to happen?”

“He’d see that not everyone is willing to bow down and kiss his—” Branson glanced at the women. “—feet. Not everyone forgets what he did at the Somme. He deserves to know—”

“Come off it. If _four hundred thousand casualties_ weren’t enough to make him sit up and take notice, why do you think a bucket of slop would?”

That set Branson back on his heels, but only for a moment. “For one thing, the bucket of slop would’ve happened to him, not someone else.”

Not a bad point, but as Thomas had pointed out earlier, it wasn’t the General who’d be stuck dealing with the consequences. “And in five minutes he’d have washed it off. You didn’t even think to nick his other uniform first, did you?”

“What other uniform?” Branson asked.

Christ. “They changed into mess kit for the dinner,” he explained. “All he has to do is have a wash and put his regular uniform back on, and the rest of it is some enlisted man’s problem—just like everything else he’s ever done.” 

“I didn’t think about that,” Branson admitted.

“Obviously.” Thomas shook his head in disgust. “If you’d even poured the _actual_ soup on him, you could’ve pretended it was an accident.” 

“I didn’t want to pretend it was an accident,” Branson declared. “I wanted—”

“To teach him a lesson. Yeah. Well, you can’t.” 

By now, Carson, William, and Lang had gone up with the soup. Mrs. Hughes came over to them. “Thank you, Sergeant,” she said crisply. “I’ll take charge of Mr. Branson from here.” 

As she began outlining her objections—rather different from Thomas’s—to Branson’s plan, Thomas wandered off into the servants’ hall, where everyone not involved in cooking or serving the dinner was discussing the incident. 

Most of them knew nothing more than what had happened in the kitchen, in full view of everyone, but Anna was quietly explaining something to Mr. Bates—and didn’t stop when Thomas sat down. “It said ‘Forgive me,’ and then something about how they’ll have arrested him by now, but he wasn’t sorry, because the—the General had it coming,” she said. “I don’t know why I thought he meant he was going to kill him. I didn’t have a lot of time to think about it.” 

Maybe because assassination would have been, in a way, a less monumentally stupid plan than the one Branson had come up with. 

“Thank God you found it in time to stop him,” Bates said. “Even if it wasn’t murder he had in mind, he’d be in a lot more trouble if he’d managed to do the deed.”

“He’s in enough trouble now, I should think,” Anna agreed. With a glance at Thomas, she added, “and pouring that stuff down the drain was bad enough; I’d not have liked having to scrub it out of the dining-room carpet.”

“And the table linens,” Thomas added. “And it would probably have splashed on at least the people to either side of him. To say nothing of what the General’s batman would have to deal with.” He paused. “That’s got to be bad enough _without_ him getting covered in slop.” 

Anna tried to stifle a giggle. Her expression turning serious, she said, “Thomas—you didn’t know anything about…did you?”

“No,” Thomas said quickly.

Maybe a little too quickly—she was now looking at him with more genuine suspicion than before. 

“I wondered if he was up to something, when he offered to wait at table,” he admitted. “But I only figured on him giving the General a piece of his mind. If I’d known what he really had planned, I’d have told him how stupid it was.”

“And informed Mr. Carson?” Anna asked. 

Thomas hesitated. “Probably.” He hurried on. “But I didn’t know anything the rest of you didn’t. It’s not my fault if Carson didn’t think to ask questions when a bloke who _doesn’t think the revolutionaries in Russia went far enough_ suddenly took it into his head to wait at table.”

Bates shook his head. “When you put it that way….”

“He should’ve been happy with Lang,” Thomas added. “He might’ve got a thing or two wrong, but nothing like _that_.” 

A little while later, Thomas had cause to regret his words. They’d shifted from talking about Branson’s aborted act of protest to the General’s visit more broadly, and Thomas was attempting to explain to Anna what had gone wrong with their salutes when William came barreling down the stairs. “Thomas,” he said. “There’s—Henry—in the dining room.”

Thomas ran upstairs, Anna hard on his heels. Passing through the servery and into the dining room, he found Lang weeping on the floor, clutching a tray, with new potatoes and peas—presumably the former contents of the tray—scattered around him. Carson stood not far away, frozen in apparent shock, while Colonel Grantham—of all people—crouched on the floor next to Lang. Major Clarkson and Nurse Crawley hovered behind him, as though aware that they ought to be doing _something_ , but unsure precisely what it was. The rest of the party sat at the table, visibly attempting to convey through posture and facial expressions that if anything out-of-the-ordinary was happening, they were entirely unaware of it.

“—don’t have to go back with them, do I?” Lang was saying. He reached up with one hand to grasp Colonel Grantham’s mess jacket. “Because I can’t.” He sobbed.

“No,” Colonel Grantham said. “No, you don’t.” He glanced up at Thomas. “Come on, old chap,” he said, starting to stand up, and hauling Lang with him. 

“It’s all right, Lang,” Thomas said, taking his free arm. “Let’s just, ah….” Do what, exactly? 

“Go with Sergeant Barrow,” Colonel Grantham said, prying Lang’s fingers off his lapel. “He’ll look after you.”

Lang made a final, gasping sob, and seemed to come to some awareness of where he was. “Sir.” His eyes darted around frantically. “My lord. I—”

“Yes,” Grantham said. “It’s all right. Sergeant?”

“Yes, sir,” Thomas said. “Come on, Lang.” He tugged at Lang’s arm, and at last got him moving toward the servery. 

Behind him, he could hear Carson apologizing for the delay in serving the next course. Downstairs, Thomas realized, they’d all be trying to figure out how to salvage the dinner—which was the last thing Thomas cared about—and anyone not involved in that would want to gawk. He led Lang toward his office, instead. Likely some of the men would be there, but unlike the downstairs crowd, they’d bugger off if he told them to. 

In fact, he didn’t even have to tell them. They all stood up when they saw him, but Wiggins proved he knew not to take a joke too far by taking in Lang’s evident distress and saying, “Anything you want us to do, Sarge?”

“Yes,” Thomas said. “Check the wards, would you? You never know if he might want to walk round again.”

No one commented on how highly unlikely that was; they all just cleared out, quickly, while Thomas got Lang settled into one of the armchairs in his office area. Opening the bottom drawer of his desk, he took out a bottle of not-very-good brandy and some glasses—it hadn’t seemed like a Wardmaster’s office without them—and poured some drinks. “Here,” he said, handing one to Lang. “Steady your nerves.”

Obediently, Lang drank. 

Thomas seated himself in the other armchair and followed suit. “So, er…what happened?”

“I don’t know,” Lang said. “I was…I _don’t_ have to go back, do I?”

“No.” 

“Right.” He nodded. “Right. It was that boy they were talking about. William. Going to join his regiment tomorrow. I _knew_ that. But I thought…I just started to wonder if I’d got it wrong, somehow. And then I couldn’t stop thinking about it.”

Thomas made an encouraging sort of noise. He could see how that could happen. Like how, when O’Brien had suggested the Wardmaster sent him to the Front to get rid of him, he couldn’t quite be sure it wasn’t true, even though he knew it wasn’t. 

“And I kept seeing him, out of the corner of my eye,” Lang went on. “The uniform. I could smell the trenches. I heard the shells. They were getting closer, and I had to tell the boy to get down. He was going to get his head blown off, standing up straight like he was on a parade-ground.” He stared off into nothing. “No livery so handsome as a uniform. That’s what the General said.” 

“I’ve had that nightmare,” Thomas said. “The one where you’re in the dining room, but it’s the Front, too, only no one else notices.” Once there had been eyes and fingers and ears bobbing in the soup, and no one else noticed that, either. 

Looking at him bleakly, Lang said, “I don’t suppose you’ve ever had it when you were _awake_.”

“No,” Thomas admitted. “That’d be worse.” 

Lang took another slug of his drink. “I should go and pack.”

“You’re not going back,” Thomas reminded him. 

Lang shook his head. “I can’t stay here. Not after this. Mr. Carson would never….”

Carson was going to have an absolute _fit_ ; he had that much right. And in Lang’s shoes, Thomas would have rather gone back to the Front than face him. But at the same time, he hated the thought of Lang leaving without a fight. “Do you _want_ to stay?” he asked. 

“It doesn’t matter what I want,” Lang said. “I don’t—I can’t…. But I have to earn.”

“Nobody you can stay with for a bit?” Thomas asked carefully, knowing how he’d hate having to answer the same question. “Family?”

“A sister.” He shook his head. “I’d go in the workhouse before I’d inflict _this_ on her and the kiddies.” 

Thomas tried to think of another solution. “I’d talk to Major Clarkson, about whether there’s something you can do in the hospital, but I don’t think that would do you much good. It being war-work.”

Lang shuddered. “No. No, that would be worse.” He took a shuddering breath. “It’s impossible. Everything’s just…impossible.”

Under his words, Thomas heard blood dripping on the floor, and saw the dark puddle spreading beneath Courtenay’s bed. “We’ll think of something. Carson…if he’s furious enough at Branson, he might blame him for the whole thing. I mean—it can’t have _helped_. All the excitement.”

“Hmph. No,” Lang admitted. “But I’m sure he didn’t mean to….”

“No, but he didn’t give half a thought to how his little stunt was going to affect anyone else,” Thomas answered. “I’m none too pleased with him either. So if somebody’s got to be hung out to dry, from where I’m standing, it might as well be him.”

Lang huffed. “Maybe. Do you think it’ll work?”

Thomas hesitated. This just might, he thought, be the time for a comforting lie, just to get Lang through the night. But he couldn’t quite manage it. “It might.” 

#

Coming downstairs with a dustpan full of vegetables—she’d had little choice but to clean up the worst of the spill while the guests were at least somewhat distracted with the main course—Anna heard Mr. Carson demand, “And where has _Thomas_ run off to?”

His voice was coming from the kitchen, which, unfortunately, was where she had to go to deposit the vegetables in the scrap bin. Entering, she found that he was addressing Mrs. Hughes and Mrs. Patmore, the latter of whom said, “How would I know?”

“Isn’t he looking after Henry?” Mrs. Hughes asked. 

Mr. Carson scoffed. “I suppose he is.”

Anna almost wondered what he thought Thomas _ought_ to be doing—except that she had a feeling she knew. “Mr. Carson, would you like me to help serve the salad course?”

“I would not.” Turning to Mrs. Patmore, he barked, “We’ll serve it in ten minutes,” and swept out.

Mrs. Patmore shoved a head of lettuce in Daisy’s direction, saying, “Wash that, quick,” she told Daisy. “We’ll put the Celery Victor on a bed of lettuce—make it look like more, since they only had about five peas apiece with the roast.”

From what Anna had seen while cleaning up, the vegetable situation hadn’t been quite that dire—Mrs. Patmore always had some of each dish left in the kitchen after it was taken up—but she didn’t argue. While Mrs. Patmore and Daisy sorted out the salad, Mrs. Hughes asked Anna, “What _did_ happen? All I could get out of Mr. Carson was that Henry had brought disgrace upon our heads.”

Anna hesitated. “I’m not sure. He had some sort of episode—with his nerves. He spilled the vegetables, and—well.”

“Has he gone mad, then?” Daisy asked, turning away from her lettuce-washing. 

“He was very distraught,” Anna temporized. “Thomas _is_ looking after him,” she added. “At least, he took him somewhere.”

“Thank heavens for that,” Mrs. Hughes said. “Poor man,” she added. “I suppose having all these soldiers in the house is too much for him.”

Anna nodded. “I wonder if he might reconsider the gardening job.”

Mrs. Hughes looked puzzled, and Anna realized that she might not have heard about that.

“It was something Thomas suggested, when…when we had the dinner for Mr. Matthew, and Mr. Carson had his heart trouble,” she explained. “He said that outdoor work is supposed to be good for shell-shock cases, and that perhaps Henry could help Basset for a while, and then try being a footman again once he’d recovered a bit more.” 

A thoughtful look on her face, Mrs. Hughes said, “I won’t ask why Thomas thinks it his place to hire under-gardeners. It does seem more humane than….”

“Mr. Carson’s going to sack him, then?” In a way, it was the obvious and inevitable outcome to a scene like the one that had transpired in the dining room. In another way, it seemed unspeakably heartless.

Mrs. Hughes shook her head slightly. “If he isn’t well enough to work….” She pressed her lips together. “I don’t like it, either, but his lordship has already done more than he had to, giving him a chance. And then a second chance, after the last time.” 

Anna couldn’t argue with that, either.

#

About the time that Thomas convinced Lang to take a powder and go up to bed—with the unconvincing claim that things might look better in the morning—the night shift turned up, and before he could get more than halfway through briefing them, Griff stuck his head in and said, “Sarge—the housekeeper said to tell you they’re having their port, and the General says he won’t have time to go through. Whatever that means.”

“It means he’ll be leaving shortly,” Thomas said. Usually, the gentlemen rejoined the ladies in the drawing room for coffee, after port and cigars in the dining room. “Round everyone else up, would you?”

Griff agreed, and Thomas—as he ought to have done when the General arrived—went out front to forestall any more last-minute changes in the arrangements.

About half of the men had already lined up by the time Carson led the procession of servants up from the kitchen door. Eying them, Carson said, “You’ve decided it’s acceptable for them to stand there, now?”

Naturally, the two massive cock-ups that had occurred on Carson’s watch hadn’t led him to forget the one that happened on Thomas’s. Ignoring the sarcasm dripping from Carson’s voice, Thomas said, “We’ve practiced it this way now. Best not change again.”

The General’s farewell went off without a hitch—thank God—but after the family had gone back inside, Carson rounded on Thomas and demanded, “Where were you?”

“What?” Thomas asked, puzzled. He glanced over at his men, who were waiting for instructions. 

“I sent William for you,” he said, “and you disappeared.”

It took Thomas a moment to understand what he was on about. “You—” He shook his head, letting out a huff of disbelief. “You know, I actually thought he came to get me for the medical emergency. But that wasn’t it at all, was it?” He scoffed again. “Unbelievable.” 

With another shake of his head, he turned away from Carson and went over to the men. “Good work,” he said. “For the most part. Hand over your cases to the night shift, and you’re free to go. Dismissed.”

They fell out, most of them heading for the side door. Wiggins lingered. “Is Lang all right?”

Involuntarily, Thomas glanced over at Carson, who hadn’t bothered to ask that question. Turning back to Wiggins, he said, “More or less. Thanks for asking.”

Wiggins nodded, and hurried off after the others. By now, the servants had started down the path to the kitchen door, but Thomas nipped inside the front door and headed up to the top of the house to check on Lang. 

Lang was in his bed, dead to the world, but not—Thomas checked his pulse—actually dead. An empty glass with a chalky film at the bottom suggested that he had taken the sleeping powder as directed. Good—he should be out all night, and Thomas didn’t have to worry about him doing anything drastic.

It had been a long day, and now that Thomas was within shouting distance of his bed, he was tempted to stay there. But he had to check on the night-shift men at least once more, and besides, if he didn’t go downstairs, it would look as though he was hiding. 

He wouldn’t give Carson the satisfaction, but he did take his time with finding and briefing the night shift. By the time he got down to the servants’ hall, the kitchen girls were laying the table for their dinner. William was there, telling the story of What Had Happened in the Dining Room to a rapt audience. 

Thomas sat down by Anna and Bates. “Branson gone already?” It seemed unlikely—Carson wouldn’t have sent for the police until the General had gone—but if he was going to blame Branson for Lang’s breakdown, he had to introduce the subject somehow.

“Mr. Carson sent him back to his cottage to stew in his own juice,” Anna explained. 

Now _that_ was a surprise. “They’re not worried about him doing a runner?”

They exchanged a glance. “I’m not sure what Mr. Carson has in mind,” Bates said—a little evasively, Thomas thought.

“How’s Henry?” Anna asked. “Should we take a tray up to him?”

Thomas shook his head. “Gave him a sleeping powder. The excitement didn’t do him any good. I don’t suppose Branson thought about _that_ , either.”

William spoke up. “He were all right when we were serving the soup, though. Looking back, he might’ve been a bit off during the fish course, but it weren’t until we took the joint up that he started carrying on.”

“Carrying on,” Thomas repeated, flatly.

William at least had the grace to look sheepish. “Er…acting like he weren’t well, I mean.”

 _He was thinking about how you’re going to die, idiot_. Thomas was tempted to say it out loud, but it didn’t exactly fit with the version of events he was trying to put forward. 

Before Thomas could quite decide what to say instead, Carson and Mrs. Hughes came in. They all stood up, and Carson left them standing while he shook his head sorrowfully and said, “What must the General think of this household?”

Thomas bit back several replies on the theme of the General having seen and done worse, and eventually Carson sat down, allowing the rest of them to sit too. 

Once they had, William said, “What’s going to happen with them, Mr. Carson? Branson and Henry, I mean.”

Carson opened his mouth, but Mrs. Hughes spoke first. “Henry didn’t mean to cause a scene. He isn’t well, but he’s not a bad man.”

Thomas stared at her. Why in God’s name did it even need to be said that he wasn’t a _bad man_?

“Not at all,” Carson said, magnanimously. “But he doesn’t belong at Downton.”

Nervous glances went around the table, but no one said anything until Thomas asked, “Why’s that, Mr. Carson?”

Carson turned a disbelieving look on him. 

“I’m just saying,” Thomas said. “The last time someone was taken ill in the dining room….” _Nobody tried to sack you, you supercilious bastard._

Mrs. Hughes shot him a warning glare. “And what about Mr. Branson?” she asked Carson. “Does he belong at Downton?”

As a change of subject, Thomas thought it was out of the frying pan and into the fire, but it might help him get around to the point he wanted to make. 

“Hm,” Carson said. “It’s a delicate business. Would we really be right to tell the police, and cause a furor, and bring riot down on our heads? And all because he wanted to pour a pot of slop over a man’s head?” He shook his head with an almost fond smile, as if Branson were a child who’d played an impish trick. 

“What?” Thomas said blankly. That was twice now, today, that Carson had surprised him. He really shouldn’t have been surprised that Carson cared more about the dinner party than about Lang—but that he’d _shrug off_ a plot to cause mayhem in the dining room was genuinely baffling. 

“He didn’t succeed, after all,” Carson added indulgently. “Thanks to Anna. And he’d not have had the opportunity to try, if Lang were more reliable.” Now he looked straight at Thomas. “Or if anyone _else_ had stepped forward to wait at table.”

Thomas’s jaw dropped. “Oh…. _fuck you_.” People gasped; Thomas ignored them. “Branson _planned a crime_. And you’re blaming me. Me and Lang. Can you even _hear_ yourself?” 

“I beg your pardon,” Carson began.

“No,” Thomas said, shaking his head quickly. “You’re—unpardonable. Lang is _ill_. And me—” What _did_ he and Lang have in common? What was it that made Carson pick the two of them, one after the other, for his scapegoats? “Well, to begin with, _I don’t work for you_.”

“And you never will again,” Carson vowed. 

“Why in God’s name would I want to?” Suspecting that the answer might have had something to do with him begging to come back here, when he’d been facing poverty and ruin, Thomas hurried on. “And why would I _step forward_ to help you save your precious dinner party? Why? Because I don’t have anything better to do?”

“I thought,” Carson snarled, “that you might possess a modicum of loyalty—”

“Because you’ve always been so _kind_ to me?” Thomas demanded. “I _despise_ you, Mr. Carson. I despise you because you’re an arrogant, small-minded bully with an exaggerated sense of your own importance, and you’re _not even very good at your job_.” Thomas could forgive a lot, but not that. _Your real fucking job_ , the Wardmaster had said, _is to look out for your lads_. Carson looked out for some. He was looking out for Branson—covering up his crime. Why?

The answer, when he thought of it, was devastatingly simple. It was the same reason, really, that Thomas used to look down on people like Syl. Because he couldn’t stand that anyone might think he was the same as them. Lang’s crime wasn’t _causing a scene_ , it was _showing weakness_. And what Branson had planned was stupid, but it wasn’t _weak_. 

He went on, “But most of all, I despise you because you despise anyone who isn’t exactly like you. That’s what this is really about, isn’t it? Why this—and everything else—has to be my fault. Because I’m—” He almost said it, but ran craven at the last moment. “Not the same kind of man as you. And Lang—well, he’s almost as bad. Two years in hell, and he can’t keep a stiff upper lip about it—I mean, he’s _practically_ a pansy, right?”

“Get out!” Carson rose to his feet, his face purpling. “Get out of this house, right now, or I’ll—”

“Hit me again?” Thomas suggested. “Try. Please.” There was a gasp from the other side of the room, and some distant part of Thomas’s mind noted that the people along the left side of the table were now looking at something else, beyond Carson. But he’d worked up a head of steam now, and rolled on. “I’d beat the living shit out of you right now except you’re not worth going to prison for.”

Carson made a sort of lunge in his direction. “How dare you—”

“Thomas—” Mrs. Hughes said, her tone placating.

“No,” Thomas answered. “Do you even—look. Lang was falling apart in front of him, and he sent William to come get me—a medic—to help him pass vegetables around to a dozen grown men and women with full use of all their limbs. Do the rest of you really think that’s _normal_?”

Thomas stopped talking, suddenly weary, and silence rang in his ears for a moment. Then everyone stood up, and a voice from the far corner of the room said, “I don’t.”

He looked toward the sound of the voice, and— _oh, fuck me blind._ Fortunately, he managed not to say it out loud. “Nurse Crawley,” he said, his voice sounding thin and distant to his own ears. “Is there something I can help you with?”

She stepped into the room, and Thomas noted distantly that she was out of uniform; he ought to have called her Lady Sybil.

“I came down to see if there was anything I could do for Branson or Henry,” she said. 

“Branson’s fine,” Thomas said automatically, his mind racing to try to figure out how much she’d heard. Thankfully not _fuck you_ ; that part had been early on. She might’ve heard the “pansy” part. Probably the bit about beating the living shit out of Carson. 

Carson jumped in. “He’s gone back to his cottage to rest, my lady. His illness wasn’t serious.”

 _Illness_? Belatedly, Thomas realized that Carson would’ve had to have given some explanation for Branson’s abrupt disappearance. “Lang’s resting as well. If Mr. Carson doesn’t decide to wake him up to sack him.”

“I’m sure,” Lady Sybil said deliberately, “that Carson wouldn’t sack someone for being ill. And Carson, you can’t sack Sergeant Barrow, either. He works for the convalescent home, not the house.” 

If she’d heard Carson telling him to get out, she’d _definitely_ heard the part where Thomas threatened to beat the living shit out of him. Scrambling to think of a plan, Thomas considered that he might, just possibly, be able to buy her silence on the matter by promising his own silence on the details of Branson’s “illness”—except that there were plenty of other witnesses to both things. 

Carson pressed his lips together, his nostrils flaring. “My lady,” he said. “I’m sorry that you witnessed this….” He huffed and shook his head, apparently unable to come up with a word. “Tho—Sergeant Barrow is…overwrought. You needn’t trouble yourself.”

For half a second, Thomas thought that she might buy it. Then she said, “Did you really hit him?”

Thomas was about to deny it, and to remind everyone that what he’d said was that he _wasn’t_ going to beat the living shit out of Carson, when he realized that Lady Sybil—or it might have been Nurse Crawley after all—wasn’t asking _him_. “Carson?” she added, a hint of steel in her voice. 

Carson’s eyebrows twitched. “The details of that incident are not fit for your ears, my lady.”

Thomas wasn’t especially keen to have her hear it, either. “It was a long time ago,” he added. “I’m not sure why I brought it up, really.”

She looked at him for a moment, then nodded. “Carson,” she said. “I’m surprised at you.” She opened her mouth to say something else, then closed it again. “Is it also true that you sent for Sergeant Barrow to help with the _dinner_? While Henry was…ill?”

“My lady,” Carson said, and fell silent. 

“I see,” she said. “But I’m keeping you all from your dinner. Sergeant, can we talk tomorrow?”

“Yes,” Thomas said. “Nurse Crawley.”

She left. Carson sat down again—or maybe _collapsed_ was the word for it. Everyone else sat down too, looking back and forth between him and Carson. 

Now that Thomas was the only one standing, everyone was looking at him. Perhaps he should apologize. Or tell Carson to go fuck himself, again. Either would probably have about the same effect. He was tempted to go and eat in the kitchen, but that would look too much like running away. Instead, he sat down. 

Under the table, Anna squeezed his arm. What that was supposed to mean, Thomas didn’t know. 

Carson didn’t seem to have any better idea of what to say or do next than Thomas did. After a lengthy and ominous silence, he finally began ladling out portions of stew—they weren’t trusted to help themselves anymore, since rationing came in—and handing them to the hall-boy to take around. 

They ate in grim silence, like a game of Quaker meeting, until the spirit of God moved Mrs. Hughes to speak. “Sergeant Barrow is right about one thing, at least,” she said. “You can’t blame him for the dinner going wrong.”

“I don’t wish to discuss it,” Carson said. 

Thomas would have shut up at that point, but Mrs. Hughes pressed on. “Nor can you blame Henry for being ill. I’m surprised at you as well, that you would care more about the dinner, at a time like that.”

“My concern,” Carson declared, “was for the honor of this house. I won’t apologize for that.”

“It seems,” Mrs. Hughes answered, “we have different ideas about what upholds the honor of this house.”

Carson turned an icy glare on Mrs. Hughes—for the first time in Thomas’s memory. “I never took you for a woman of _low standards_.” He pushed his chair back, saying, “I’ve lost my appetite.”

William got about halfway to standing up, when Carson did, but sank back into his chair when he saw that no one else was getting up. 

Once he had gone, Mrs. Hughes cleared her throat and said, “While we’re on the subject, Sergeant Barrow, I do not appreciate hearing language of that sort.”

If it had been Carson saying it, Thomas wasn’t sure how he’d respond, but in the circumstances, he decided to save the argument for when someone brought up something he didn’t regret saying. “Yes, Mrs. Hughes. I’m sorry.”

Then Thomas pushed stew around on his plate for a while, waiting for someone to say something about any of the other things he’d said. No one did.

#

“Papa?” Sybil said. When she returned to the small library, he was standing by the cold fireplace, looking as troubled as she felt. 

He looked up and attempted a smile. “Are they all right, then?”

She’d told him where she was going, and why—Mama and everyone else were busy talking about Cousin Matthew. “I think so. Can we talk?”

“Of course.”

She glanced over at Mama and the others. The small library was, well, small. 

Papa saw the problem. “Shall we go into my study?”

“Yes, let’s,” she agreed.

She rarely ventured into Papa’s study, at least not now that she wasn’t a little girl anymore. He took Cousin Matthew in there sometimes, to talk about the estate. It seemed a good place for a serious discussion.

On the way there, she thought about which of the many subjects, jostling for space in her brain, she would bring up first. She settled on, “Carson wants to dismiss Henry. Because of what happened.”

“I thought he might,” Papa said, settling into the chair behind his desk. 

“Will you let him?”

He rubbed his forehead. “I’m not sure Henry is well enough to work.” 

“Does that matter?” she challenged him.

Papa huffed. “When we’re discussing whether or not he keeps his job? Yes.” 

“I’m sure there’s something he can do, even if he isn’t well enough to wait on important guests,” she argued, remembering what Thomas had said about footmen being ornaments. When you chose an ornament, it didn’t make sense to choose one that was broken. But Henry wasn’t an ornament; he was a person.

“There likely is, but he doesn’t seem able to do the job we hired him for.” Papa sighed. “I’ll speak to Carson. He may have some ideas.”

Given what Sergeant Barrow had been saying as she went down the passage to the servants’ hall, she doubted it. “Carson doesn’t _want_ to help him. Did you know, when he sent William to fetch Thomas, he wanted him to help _serve the dinner_?”

Papa shook his head. “I’m sure that’s not true.”

“It is,” she insisted. “They were….” She hesitated over how to describe what they had been doing. “Quarreling about it when I went down. Oh, and Carson wants to dismiss Sergeant Barrow, as well. Even though he can’t.” 

“They’ve been…quarreling, for some time,” Papa said, echoing her pause.

“Carson doesn’t like having the convalescent home here,” Sybil stated baldly. “He’s never said anything to me, but the other girls have mentioned how he’s always standing around _disapproving_ of things.”

“I can’t say I enjoy it either,” Papa said. “But we are, as General Strutt said, in the midst of a national crisis. I’ll speak to him.”

#

When the kitchen door opened, as Thomas was smoking a cigarette in the courtyard, he expected Daisy with one of her bowls of scraps, or perhaps Anna, delegated to talk some sense into him. 

Instead, it was Mrs. Hughes. She looked up at the clear sky—still not completely darkened—and said, “Well, at least it’s a fine evening.”

Thomas flicked ash from his cigarette. “You didn’t come out here to talk about the _weather_.”

“No,” she agreed, and dove right into it. “Mr. Carson doesn’t mean to be heartless.”

“He certainly doesn’t mean _not_ to be.”

She sighed. “He doesn’t like the way things are changing, and that’s a fact. He’s clinging to what he knows. Having you and William waiting at table—he was wrong to expect it of you, in the circumstances, but he wanted it to be as it was before the war. Surely you can understand that.”

Thomas looked at her. The last time she’d tried to make excuses for Carson, he’d bitten back most of what he wanted to say. He wasn’t going to do that now. “If there is anyone in this house,” he said levelly, “who has suffered less from the war than Carson, I don’t know who it could be. Certainly not me. Or Lang.”

“Well, no,” she admitted. “But….”

“I don’t have time to indulge his fantasies about stopping the world in its tracks,” Thomas went on. “Even if I wanted to—which, to be frank, I don’t. Do you want to know what I was doing, when Carson was having a temper tantrum about the dinner party?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I was trying to figure out how to make sure Lang got through the night without killing himself.” 

She gasped. “Surely he wouldn’t!”

“I don’t know.” Lang hadn’t said anything about it, after all. Neither had Courtenay. “It was a feeling I had. I’ve seen it happen before. When people don’t see a way forward.” He shook his head. “But that isn’t even really the point.” Nor would it do Lang any good to have Thomas going around saying he was suicidal. God only knew, if Carson got wind of it, it would only make things worse. A footman killing himself in the _house_ would be a scandal. 

“Then what is the point?” Mrs. Hughes asked.

“He isn’t even my man,” Thomas said. “He’s Carson’s.” But he could see that Mrs. Hughes didn’t understand. How could he say it so that she would? “In the dining room, Lang—he forgot where he was. That happens sometimes—he was there, and he was at the Front, and he wasn’t sure, for a moment, which one was real. It happens that way sometimes,” he repeated. 

“It must have been terrifying,” Mrs. Hughes said uncertainly.

“Yes,” Thomas said. “But that isn’t the point, either. The point is that while that was happening, what Lang was trying to do—what he cared about—was making William get down.” She wouldn’t understand that, either. “It’s—in the trenches, if you stand up straight, the snipers can see you. Or the shells, if one hits nearby, you stay low, and maybe the shrapnel will pass over you, or at least hit you somewhere that isn’t vital. William doesn’t know that. The new men never do, when they first come over. They have to learn it quick—or they don’t learn it at all. And that’s what Lang was trying to do.” 

“To save William’s life,” Mrs. Hughes said. “Because he thought they were in danger.”

“Exactly,” Thomas agreed. He went to inhale from his cigarette, and found that it had burned down to a long cylinder of ash. He tossed it down and lit another one. “That’s how it is, over there. You have to look out for the bloke next to you. Whether you know him or not. Whether you like him or not. It’s—it’s the only thing that matters. So Lang’s half out of his mind, and—and that’s still what matters. He didn’t disgrace himself in there.” No more than what’s-his-name had, the one who’d shot himself in the foot to get his patrol to turn back. “He did his job.”

“I think I understand,” Mrs. Hughes said. “But…he wasn’t really at the Front.”

Thomas shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. It’s…it’s starkest at the Front, when anyone can die any moment. But it’s that way in the rear, too. Even this far to the rear. You look out for your mates, you look out for the men under you. The man over you looks out for you. Lang was looking out for William. Who was looking out for Lang?”

Mrs. Hughes didn’t answer. 

“Who?” Thomas repeated. 

She pressed her lips together. “I’m sure he appreciates your stepping in to help.”

“Which _he_ do you mean? Carson? We know he doesn’t. Because he said so.” Taking a drag from his cigarette, Thomas continued, “It’s a nightmare over there. It really is. You come back to Blighty, and it ought to be better. It ought to be safe.” He hadn’t thought about it quite that way before—he wasn’t being shot at here, so why did it feel _worse_ than France? “Maybe I’m still halfway over there in my head, too, because when I see how much Carson doesn’t care—about me, about Lang, about any of us—all I can think about is how he’s going to get us all killed.” Thomas hadn’t allowed himself to think it before, but now that he’d put it into words, he knew it was true. He’d always resented Carson’s bullying, his favoritism, the way he blamed other people—usually Thomas—for his own faults. But it didn’t feel like an annoyance anymore. It felt _dangerous_. “I know he isn’t really going to get us killed,” he added, because put that way, it did sound a bit mad. “But he can ruin people. Lang. Me. Branson, except for some reason he doesn’t want to.” 

Perhaps he shouldn’t have brought that up, because Mrs. Hughes said, “It sounded as though you wanted him to ‘ruin’ Branson.”

“Not particularly,” Thomas said—if only because Nurse Crawley wouldn’t like it. “But if somebody’s got to be held to blame, he’s the one who made a choice.” He shook his head. “Or Carson—as though that would ever happen.”

“Now you’re not being fair,” Mrs. Hughes said. “He couldn’t have known what Branson had in mind—or that Lang would have…difficulties.”

“He put a Socialist hothead and a shell-shock case in a room with the Butcher of the Somme,” Thomas countered. “How surprising is it that something went wrong?”

“Perhaps he might have seen it coming,” she allowed. “But what could he have done differently?”

Automatically, Thomas began mentally listing the things Carson could have done, while also formulating an anodyne reply. But since he’d been saying what he thought all evening, he might as well keep going. “All right,” he said. “If I’d been in Carson’s shoes, the first thing I’d have done was asked Lang if he thought he was up to it. If he said he wasn’t, or wasn’t sure, I’d start looking for help. Probably Mr. Molesley or Mr. Spratt.”

“But they’re butlers,” Mrs. Hughes objected. “He couldn’t ask them to play the footman.”

“But he could ask a chauffeur and an RAMC Sergeant?” Thomas asked rhetorically. “No. If I couldn’t find any other men, I’d work out a plan to use the maids for most of it. Maybe see what Bates could manage, for the look of things—he couldn’t carry the trays up the stairs, but you could put him in the servery and have him do a few little things. Sauces, or the wine—I’d have to take him up there with some trays and things, and experiment.” He’d have had to experiment with what _he_ could manage, too, but Carson didn’t have anything wrong with any of his limbs. 

“I didn’t think of that,” Mrs. Hughes admitted. “I doubt Mr. Carson did, either.”

“It wouldn’t look right, having a man with a cane waiting at table,” Thomas acknowledged. “But if that’s what I had to work with, I’d sort something out. I might talk about it a bit more with Lang, too, see if he thought he could manage a course or two, even if he didn’t feel up to the whole three-ring circus.” The main course would be the trickiest thing, for either Thomas or Bates—a joint of meat on a tray was a balancing act even with both hands. If Lang could handle that, the rest wouldn’t be too bad. Apart from Thomas having to serve people from the wrong side, at least. 

He went on, “Supposing Lang _did_ think he was up to it, the first thing would be to show him I had confidence in him. I wouldn’t, for instance, go around dropping hints that I thought he wasn’t.”

“I expect he thought Henry would try harder, to prove himself,” she suggested. 

“That might’ve worked on me,” Thomas admitted. “But Lang’s not me.” Even with him, it might have backfired spectacularly, since if he really _wasn’t_ up to it, he’d never have admitted it with Carson needling him about it. “No, if he said he was up to it, but I wasn’t sure, I’d plan for it. Make sure the maids were ready to step in if I needed them. Come up with some excuses to get him out of the dining room if he started looking unsteady. That sort of thing. William said he started looking a bit off, during the fish course,” he added. “I don’t know if Carson didn’t notice, or didn’t care, but….” Thomas wasn’t sure _he_ cared which it was—it was Carson’s job to notice and to care. Both. 

Reluctantly, Mrs. Hughes said, “When they came down for the main course, Mr. Carson said something about not being sure Henry was up to the task.”

“Then I’d have had him take a break. Not the best time to lose the only able-bodied man I have, but there’s no way round it.” Shrugging his good shoulder, Thomas went on, “We’ve talked, Lang and me, about what happens when he has his troubles. If things get muddled, if he loses track of what he’s supposed to be doing, it reminds him of when he had his breakdown at the Front. So I’d make sure he knew the plan backwards and forwards. Maybe even rehearse it. Work out some signals, so that if he started to lose the thread, I could get him back on course before he had time to get too worked up.” He tossed down his cigarette. “That’s what I would have done.” He’d also have made sure not to pick a fight with anyone else and stick Lang in the middle of it, but mentioning that would only prompt Mrs. Hughes to object to his characterizing what Carson had done over the silver as _picking a fight_ with him. 

“I see,” Mrs. Hughes said. Thomas braced himself for a _But_ , followed by an excuse for why Carson couldn’t have done that. What she said instead surprised him. “Well, then, I suppose it’s a shame you weren’t in charge of the dinner party.”

“I had other things to do,” Thomas reminded her. “Speaking of which, I’d best check on my men, and on Lang, and get to bed.” 

“Of course,” she said, standing up. “I won’t keep you.”

#

“I heard things were…eventful, downstairs,” Robert prompted, when Bates turned up in his dressing room to get him out of his mess kit. 

“Mm,” Bates said. “There’s one bit of a good news, my lord. William and Daisy are engaged.”

“Oh,” Robert said, trying to remember which one Daisy was. A kitchen maid, he thought. “Please give him my congratulations, if I don’t see him before he leaves.” With that development, it was an especially good thing that he’d decided to arrange for William to be Matthew’s batman. 

“I’m sure he’ll appreciate that, my lord,” Bates said, taking off Robert’s mess jacket, with an expectant air.

“To begin with, how is Henry?”

“Sergeant Barrow says he’s doing well enough,” Bates said. “He sent him to bed with a sleeping powder—I expect a night’s sleep will do him good.”

“Lady Sybil tells me Carson means to dismiss him?” Robert still wasn’t sure if Sybil might have got that wrong.

“That’s what he said, my lord.”

“Lady Sybil objects,” Robert told him. “I can’t say I particularly like it either, but she didn’t think Carson would be inclined to look for another solution.”

“It doesn’t seem likely,” Bates agreed. “Sergeant Barrow did have an idea about that, a while back.”

“Where does Barrow come into it?” Robert wondered aloud. “Never mind. What’s his idea?”

“The last time that it…seemed Henry might not be well enough to wait at table, he suggested that he work in the garden for a while, until he felt up to trying again as a footman,” Bates explained. “Apparently working outdoors is supposed to be good for shell-shock. I can’t say I know Mr. Basset well, but he might be a bit more patient than Mr. Carson, with Henry’s…difficulties.” 

Basset did, indeed, protest frequently that he was unable to keep the gardens up to standards with no assistants. “I see.”

“Henry didn’t think much of the idea then,” Bates added. “It’s a bit of a step down, working outdoors. But he might feel differently now.”

“I’ll speak to Basset,” Robert decided. “That may be the answer we’re looking for.” It would appease Sybil, at least, even if Henry didn’t take them up on it. “If Henry feels he can find a situation more to his liking elsewhere, of course we’ll wish him well and send him off with a suitable reference.” 

“Very good, my lord.” 

That was one item off his list. “Lady Sybil also tells me that Carson and Barrow…quarreled.” Bates shot him a look of mild disapproval, and Robert added, “Yes, I know it isn’t really cricket, asking you to bear tales, but I’m going to have to speak to both of them. I doubt that they’ll describe the incident in the same way.”

“I expect not, my lord,” Bates admitted. “Sergeant Barrow…used some language that he oughtn’t to have. Lady Sybil missed the worst of it, thankfully. Apart from that, most of what he said was…inflammatory, but not untrue.” 

Robert sighed. “I seem to remember,” he noted, “that Barrow was chosen for the convalescent home job _because_ he’d be able to work with the household staff.” 

“To be fair, my lord, neither Mrs. Hughes, Mrs. Patmore, nor Mrs. Coulter, in the laundry, has had any difficulty with him. Nor any of the junior staff. It’s only Mr. Carson who’s having trouble.” He hesitated. “And if he were pushed out, his men won’t like it.” 

Robert vaguely remembered hearing one or two of Barrow’s men saying complimentary things about him, at some point. “Is he that popular?”

“I can scarcely believe it either, my lord, but yes. And they already resent the way Mr. Carson treats him, and them. If they learnt that he was behind the removal of their Sergeant…well, it would be a substantial problem for the next man to deal with.”

Robert didn’t need to be told that it was highly unlikely that the reason behind such a change could be kept from the men. “Her ladyship and Major Clarkson are quite pleased with him, as well,” he said. “I don’t think it’s likely they’ll want to remove him.” Nor would Sybil like it, for that matter. “If all of the senior servants found him difficult to work with…but you’re quite certain they don’t?”

Bates hesitated slightly. “I’m fairly sure. If Mrs. Patmore found him difficult, we’d all know. You might ask Mrs. Hughes, to be certain of her and Mrs. Coulter, but I haven’t heard of any trouble.”

“Carson and Barrow have never gotten along,” Robert said. “I suppose it’s to be expected they’d butt heads, now they’re on the same level.”

Now, Bates’s hesitation was more noticeable. 

“Come out with it, old chap,” Robert chided him. “It’s late.”

“Thomas—Barrow, I should say—seems to be making quite an effort to get along with Mr. Carson. I won’t say there hasn’t been a point or two where he could be a bit more conciliatory, but….”

“You’re saying that the fault is mostly on Carson’s side?”

“I was trying not to say that, my lord. But…yes. I don’t believe he accepts that they _are_ on the same level. He keeps trying to force Thomas to defer to him. I expect you’ve heard about the silver-polishing?”

“Her ladyship mentioned it,” Robert said. “I don’t quite understand why Carson wanted Barrow to do it in the first place.”

“To prove he could,” Bates said, bluntly. “I’m sorry, my lord, but that’s what it was.” 

It did seem more logical than what Cora had tried to explain, about medical supplies in the silver-safe, and so on. “So by tonight, Barrow was fed up.”

“That’s about the size of it, my lord,” Bates agreed. 

#

The next morning, Thomas tapped on Lang’s door, and let himself in. He found Lang sitting up on the edge of his bed, in trousers and shirtsleeves. “All right?” Thomas asked.

Lang made a noncommittal sound. “I don’t know what I’m going to do now.”

“I’m going to demand breakfast on a tray in my office,” Thomas said. It was a decision he’d made in the small hours of the night, thinking about how unprepared he’d be to face Carson and the rest of them when he’d barely slept. “Join me, if you like.” 

“Thanks,” Lang said. “But I was thinking a little further ahead than breakfast.”

“I figured.” But he didn’t know what the day was going to bring for either of them. “But breakfast is the next thing. Might as well get through that.” 

With a bit more chivvying, Lang did up his tie and put on his jacket. Thomas installed him in the orderlies’ room before continuing down to the kitchen, where William was mooning about, cluttering the place up. “Daisy, I’ll need mine and Lang’s breakfast on a tray. We’re having it in my office.” 

She looked at him. “What?”

He repeated himself.

“I heard you,” she said. “Why?”

“Because I want to,” he said. 

She huffed. “It isn’t ready yet.”

“Bring it up when it is.” She opened her mouth to reply, and he added, “Or have one of the other girls do it.” The extra kitchen helpers were paid by the Army; they couldn’t object to waiting on the Wardmaster. He left before Daisy could argue any further.

Back up in the office, Thomas put the kettle on and explained the situation to Lang, who asked, “Will they really bring it?”

“I don’t know,” Thomas admitted. “If not, I’ll have to go down and shout at someone.” Lang looked a little worried at that, and Thomas added, “I did some shouting yesterday. Might take it up as a hobby.”

He regretted his insouciance when, about ten minutes later, the tray arrived in the hands of none other than Mrs. Hughes. Hurrying to take it from her, he said, “Er, I thought one of the kitchen maids would bring it.”

“They were a bit busy,” she said. “And I wanted to see how Henry was faring.”

“Better,” Lang said cautiously. “Thank you.”

“Good,” she said. Taking a deep breath, she said, “I hope that neither of you feels…unwelcome, in the servants’ hall.”

There was absolutely no answer Thomas could give to that, so when Lang didn’t supply one either, he said the only thing he could think of. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

She looked about as surprised by the question as he was by having asked it. “Thank you,” she finally said. “I will.” She sat in one of their rickety chairs, and Thomas fixed her a cup. Sipping it, she said, “This is a bit different, isn’t it?”

“Two parts standard issue, one part Fortnum’s Superior,” Thomas said. “House blend.” 

She got the joke, of course—she’d been one of the ones sending them Fortnum’s Superior in France. She also accepted piece of toast, which made it possible for Thomas and Lang to start eating. “Will you come down to see William off?” she asked as they ate. “He’s leaving right after breakfast.”

“I suppose,” Thomas said. Between one thing and another, he hadn’t seen much of William yesterday.

“I don’t believe either of you heard,” she added, “but he and Daisy are engaged.” 

_Really_? Thomas wondered if she’d changed her mind, or if something else had happened. “I expect he’s over the moon.” 

“Naturally,” Mrs. Hughes agreed. “And Daisy, as well.”

Lang put down a piece of toast he’d been toying with. “I hope,” he said, and then very clearly discarded what he’d been planning to finish that sentence with. “They have many happy years together.”

“As do we all,” Mrs. Hughes said—answering, Thomas thought, both what Lang had said and what he hadn’t. William’s engagement to Daisy wouldn’t mean much if he didn’t come back alive. “His lordship is going to arrange for him to be Mr. Matthew’s soldier-servant,” she added. “So he’ll have someone looking after him.”

“Good,” Thomas said, and carefully didn’t think about how no one here had cared, when he went, whether he’d had anyone looking after him or not. He had, after all. “Captain Crawley knows what he’s about, over there.”

They spoke a little more of inconsequential matters—mostly how Captain Crawley had seemed—and then Mrs. Hughes excused herself.

“It isn’t always much of a help,” Lang said once she had gone. “Being an officer’s servant.”

“I know,” Thomas said. “Crawley’s all right, though.” Lang would know that that was high praise. “There was one of his men, we had him in the shell shock ward over the winter. They sent him back, and in the spring, he came through my regular unit, with a bullet hole in his foot.” He didn’t have to explain to Lang what that meant. “One of our officers wanted to raise a stink, but Captain Crawley—he was a Lieutenant then—helped me sort it out. Got him sent home.”

“Oh,” Lang said, looking relieved. 

“Yeah.” It occurred to Thomas now that this anecdote had more personal relevance for Lang than he’d initially thought. “I didn’t have a chance to talk to him last night,” which was likely true even if Thomas had thought of it at the time, “but if we need him, to work on Colonel Grantham or something, we could get Nurse Crawley to write to him.” 

Lang absorbed that. “I’ve been thinking,” he said slowly.

“Yeah?” Finished eating, Thomas leaned back in his chair and lit a cigarette. 

“Gardening doesn’t sound so bad, now. Better than….”

Facing Carson? Trying to think of something else? In Lang’s place, Thomas thought that he’d prefer a spell as an under-gardener to either of those. And after last night, almost anything would be easier to swing than getting Lang back into Carson’s good graces—or even his begrudging tolerance. “All right,” he said. “We’ll get to work on that, then.”

They went downstairs to see William off, Lang trailing disconsolately behind Thomas. William looked even more fresh-faced and idiotic than usual, beaming at Daisy like he couldn’t believe his luck. Thomas was fairly sure he managed to sound sincere, congratulating him and offering Daisy his best wishes. 

When William headed for the door, arm around Daisy, and the rest of them fell back to give the couple a little privacy, Thomas pulled Bates aside. He’d barely begun reminding Bates of that discussion when Bates said, “I spoke to his lordship about it last night. Is Henry interested now?”

Caught slightly flat-footed—he’d been expecting to have to talk Bates into it again—Thomas said, “Er, yes.”

“His lordship will be glad to hear it,” Bates said. “He’ll probably speak to Basset today—I don’t think he has any engagements.”

“Good,” Thomas said. 

“He isn’t going to let Carson sack you, either,” Bates added. 

Thomas didn’t point out that Carson couldn’t sack him—they both knew that he wouldn’t be Wardmaster of the convalescent home for long if the Crawleys didn’t want him to be. “I figured I was going to have some work to do on that one,” he said instead. 

“I told him I didn’t think your men would stand for it, and he said he didn’t think her ladyship or Major Clarkson would, either,” Bates said. “He’s going to talk to Carson about….” He looked over towards Carson’s pantry. “Everything.”

So…all Thomas had to do today was run the convalescent home? “Thanks,” he said, and mostly meant it.

“Lady Sybil spoke to him first,” Bates said. “About Lang and you.”

She had stuck up for him with Carson, but he hadn’t expected her to realize on her own that it was going to take more than that. “Nurse Crawley,” he said. “Pretty sure that was Nurse Crawley.” 

“Nurse Crawley, then,” Bates said. “Mrs. Hughes told me some of what you talked about last night, after dinner.”

Automatically, Thomas began reviewing the conversation for anything damaging that he might have said. 

“Got me thinking,” Bates continued. “We should look out for each other more, around here.”

“Yeah?” Thomas asked, suspiciously.

“Yeah,” Bates said.

#

After completing the morning’s work, Sybil went to Sergeant Barrow’s office, with three things on her mind. Fortunately, he was there—working on the day-book, it looked like.

“Nurse Crawley,” he said, standing briefly when she entered, and gesturing her to a chair. She sat. “I hope I’m not interrupting,” she said. “I wanted to ask how Henry is this morning.”

“You aren’t,” Barrow said, closing the day-book. “He’s feeling better.”

“Good,” she said. “Papa said he would sort something out, for him.” She’d seen Papa, briefly, at breakfast, and he’d said he thought there was a solution, but he’d come down just a moment before she was due to report for duty, so she hadn’t had time to ask for any details.

“Yes,” Barrow said. “He’s going to work in the gardens for a while, as long as it’s all right with Mr. Basset.”

“Oh,” Sybil said, pleased. “That’s supposed to be one of the best things for shell-shock patients.” She’d read it in a copy of the RAMC journal.

“Yes,” Barrow said, patiently. Right; she supposed he’d know that himself, having worked with shell-shock cases in France. “We’d talked about it before, in fact—he wasn’t terribly keen, since it isn’t his usual type of work, but that was before the convalescent home came.” 

Sybil nodded. “It was fairly dreadful, seeing him in the dining room,” she confessed. She’d known that—as a trained nurse—she ought to do something, but she hadn’t been at all sure what. 

“He was in a bad way,” Sergeant Barrow agreed. “The pressure of the General’s visit, and William going off to war the next day, and….” He seemed to decide not to say whatever was next, but Sybil had a feeling it was about Carson being beastly. “Not the sort of thing the doctors had in mind when they suggested he work in the country for his health.”

“I suppose not,” she agreed. “I’m glad he feels better.” Since it sounded like Henry was settled, she moved on to her next concern—the one that, secretly, she found even more pressing. “Have you heard anything about Branson?” She’d tried to pump Anna for information on the subject, when she came up to deal with their evening dresses, but she’d said little except to repeat that his illness wasn’t serious. 

Barrow sighed, and looked toward the shelves that separated his office from the area where the orderlies had their tea and smoking breaks. There were two or three of them out there. “I fancy a bit of fresh air,” Sergeant Barrow said. “If you’d like to join me.”

Clearly, there _was_ something more to hear. 

#

Once they were outside, away from prying ears, Thomas lit a cigarette to buy a few more seconds to decide what he was going to tell Nurse Crawley about Branson. He felt, obscurely, that he oughtn’t to lie—but even with that decided, there was the question of how to address the subject without confirming what he knew about her interest in Branson, or eliciting any confessions he’d have to do something about. 

He considered pretending that Nurse Crawley might be unaware of Branson’s political opinions—though, if she’d discussed anything more than ordering the motor with him, she couldn’t be. Branson didn’t know how to keep his mouth shut, or when he ought to try. And the second time they’d talked about him—when she’d declared him “insufferable,”—Nurse Crawley had mentioned him by name. 

Finally, he decided to open with, “Branson wasn’t really ill.”

“He wasn’t?” she said. “Then why…?”

“He’d planned a…dramatic gesture. Aimed at the General.” She didn’t, he felt, need to know the details. Unless Branson insisted on boasting to her, which was his own look-out. “Mr. Carson caught wind of it and yanked him out of the dining room before he could make it.”

“Oh,” she said, sounding relieved. Thomas watched as she realized that news was not really something to be relieved about. “What’s going to happen to him?”

“Last I heard, Mr. Carson had decided not to do anything. Perhaps because if he did, he’d have to admit that he ought to have picked up on it before the last minute.” That wasn’t the real reason, or at least not the only reason, but now that he wasn’t riding high on righteous indignation, Thomas didn’t want to discuss his insight about how Carson chose his victims. 

“He won’t tell Papa?” she asked. “Are you sure?”

“We aren’t exactly in the habit of exchanging confidences,” Thomas said dryly. She ought to know that, after what she’d seen last night. “But he said something about not thinking it was very important, since he didn’t succeed in…doing what he planned.”

Nurse Crawley bit her lip. “What _was_ his plan? He wasn’t going to…hurt anyone, was he?”

“No.” He decided not to mention that they’d all jumped to the conclusion it was an assassination plot—not a flattering thing to hear about one’s beau. “He just meant to…raise a stink.” More literally than Nurse Crawley would probably take it, but there was no lie in it.

She nodded. “He did say he wanted to make the British government look foolish,” she noted. “But _here_? After all the work we did to make a good impression on the General?”

Maybe, Thomas thought, she’d give Branson an earful on the subject. It was the least he deserved. “He didn’t seem to have thought it through very well.” 

“I’d thought about going over at lunch-time to see if he needed anything,” she said. “It seems what he needs is a piece of my mind.” 

“Might do some good,” Thomas agreed. His cigarette was about finished, so he took a final drag and tossed it aside. 

He turned to go back in, but Nurse Crawley put a hand on his arm. “Wait,” she said. “I wanted to ask about Carson, too.” 

Why? Carson wasn’t ill; he was just a prick. “What about him?”

“I hope he isn’t being too beastly.”

Oh. “I’ve managed to avoid him, so far this morning.” 

“Papa’s going to speak to him,” she added.

Carson, Thomas would bet, would have quite a bit he wanted to say to his lordship, too. Well, he’d had a quiet _morning_ , at least. “I see.”

“Is it true he _hit_ you?”

Thomas really wished he hadn’t mentioned that. “It was a long time ago. When I first came to work here.” 

“But why did he—”

“I don’t really want to discuss it,” Thomas interrupted.

She nodded. “All right. But he doesn’t do that regularly, does he? Hit the footmen?”

“He doesn’t,” Thomas said. 

Nurse Crawley nodded again and said, “Because if he did, Papa would have to know.”

“As far as I know, that was the only time.” Did that mean she hadn’t told his lordship that part already? Thomas hoped not. And that Bates hadn’t, either. “As a matter of fact, last night wasn’t the first time I’ve wished he’d try it again, so I could hit him back.”

He’d meant it to lighten the mood, but instead, Nurse Crawley looked more worried. “Does he speak to you like that often?”

“Sometimes,” Thomas admitted. “We’ve never gotten on.” 

“He shouldn’t,” she said. 

Had anyone ever said that before? Thomas didn’t think so. “I know.” He looked toward the house again. “We both have work to be doing.” 

They went inside, and got back to work. By lunchtime, Griff had gotten hold of some version of what had happened the night before—likely from Ethel—and was gleefully recounting it to the other orderlies when Thomas got to the breakfast room. Once they’d all stood up and Thomas had as-you-were’d them, someone asked, “Sarge, is it true you told that Carson you’d beat the living daylights out of him?”

“ _Mr_. Carson,” Thomas corrected, as he put meat and potatoes onto his plate. “The word I used was ‘living shit,’ and I said I _would_ do, except he wasn’t worth going to prison for.” He didn’t want them getting any ideas about carrying out his threat. 

There was a general murmur of approval, and then Griff turned to recounting Nurse Crawley’s part of the story. “So, Carson and Sarge didn’t know she was even in the room—they were facing the other way—and she says, ‘I don’t.’”

“She’s a brick,” Wiggins said admiringly. 

“Ent she?” Griff agreed. “So then Carson— _Mr._ Carson—was falling all over himself, my lady this and my lady that. Wish I’d seen it.”

It had been considerably less entertaining in reality than in Griff’s third-hand retelling, but Thomas supposed a lot of Army stories were like that. 

#

“He used some language he shouldn’t have, my lord, particularly in mixed company,” Mrs. Hughes concluded, “and of course Mr. Carson isn’t used to being contradicted in public, but it may be that a short, sharp shock was needed, to make him take notice.”

“Perhaps,” Robert agreed. He’d been talking to the servants since morning, summoning them to his office one by one, and had learned that the internal politics of the servants’ hall were every bit as complicated as those of a barracks—which, perhaps, shouldn’t have been a surprise. All accounts had agreed on the issue of Thomas’s language—with varying levels of circumlocution around what, precisely, he had said—and most agreed that what Thomas had said had been a long time coming, if injudiciously expressed. The glaring exception, unsurprisingly, was Carson, who had managed to imply, without quite saying so, that this was only the most recent and public of a number of hysterical outbursts. 

“It’s been suggested,” Robert said delicately, “that Carson perhaps does not understand that, as Wardmaster of the convalescent home, Sergeant Barrow is not under his authority.”

Mrs. Hughes hesitated. “Begging your pardon, my lord, but if he doesn’t understand, it’s because he chooses not to. We all have a bit of difficulty with, oh, remembering we ought to call him Sergeant Barrow, now, and not Thomas, but….” She trailed off. 

“Yes, I’ve had trouble with that, too.”

“He’s touchy about it, my lord, and Mr. Carson knows it. I suppose you heard about the silver.”

“Yes.” At great length, from Carson, who had seemed not to understand that he was digging himself in deeper the more details he provided about the disagreement. 

“All I can say about that is he and I found it quite simple to arrange the extra cleaning for the General’s visit. We went round the house together, to see what needed to be done, and then agreed which tasks were more suited to his men and which to the housemaids.”

The contrast with how Carson had—by his own admission—approached the matter of the silver was fairly stark. “I see. And—just so I know I’ve covered everything—has the head laundress mentioned finding him difficult to work with?”

“Not particularly, my lord. She grumbles about the extra work, and she doesn’t like any of the solutions Sergeant Barrow has suggested—having one or two of the men help, when things are especially busy, or asking her ladyship to see if the War Office might pay for another laundry-maid—but she’s always been that way.”

Robert had known plenty of men like that in his Army days—ones who would rather have something to grouse about than otherwise—and he supposed there was no reason a woman couldn’t be the same way. “I understand. Thank you, Mrs. Hughes. You’ve been very helpful.”

“Thank you, my lord,” she said, and hesitated. 

“Is there something else?”

“I only wondered what’s to become of Henry, my lord,” she said.

“It looks like he’s going to work in the gardens for a while,” Robert said. “I haven’t had a chance to work out the details with Basset yet, but I think he’ll agree. If he doesn’t, we’ll think of something else.” He’d spoken to all of the servants, now, and while he was going to have to circle back around to Carson, there was one more person he needed to hear from first. “If you’re able to locate Sergeant Barrow, tell him I’d like to speak to him as soon as it’s convenient.”

#

 _Fuck_. Thomas had been looking forward to a cigarette between dressing-changes and Major Clarkson’s rounds, but he couldn’t pretend not to understand what _as soon as it’s convenient_ meant, coming from an officer. 

At least Colonel Grantham wasn’t saving this for after Major Clarkson had arrived—not being in Thomas’s chain of command, he’d need to bring in Thomas’s commanding officer if he meant to do anything more than tell him off. He could, of course, mean to involve the Major later, but with foreknowledge of what Colonel Grantham meant to say, and a bit of maneuvering, he could get his side of the story in front of Major Clarkson first. 

He went into Grantham’s study—another saving grace, it wasn’t the small library, where his men might have overheard—and braced up. “Sir.”

Grantham was sitting behind his desk, and for a moment, Thomas was reminded of being in the same position in the Wardmaster’s office. He wasn’t about to be offered a drink, this time.

“Sergeant,” Grantham said. “First off, I don’t think I need to tell you that certain kinds of language are not appreciated in this house.”

So they were starting with that. “Yes, sir.”

“Mrs. Hughes tells me that she’s spoken to you about this, at some length. She considers that you were highly provoked, and believes that you will control yourself better in future. Is that true?”

That wasn’t quite how Thomas had expected this to go. “Yes, sir.”

“Good. In that case, I don’t think Major Clarkson needs to be apprised, but I won’t be so tolerant a second time.”

 _Really_? “Yes, sir.”

“Very well. At ease.”

Moving his feet apart and putting his hands behind his back, Thomas wondered if Colonel Grantham really _meant_ to imply that the bollocking portion of the program was finished. It didn’t seem at all likely, but what Grantham said next suggested he had.

“I’m given to understand that Carson’s attitude toward the convalescent home staff has been…less welcoming than one would wish.”

Thomas’s first thought was to wonder what sort of a trap this could be. Perhaps to see if he’d give in to the temptation to slag off Carson? “I agree, sir. Mrs. Hughes tells me he’s found the adjustment difficult.” That surely sounded reasonable, and had the advantage of being perfectly true. Thomas didn’t need to share that he was past giving a flying fuck at a doughnut about how Carson felt about anything.

“Yes, she explained that to me, as well. Nevertheless, I’ll be speaking to him about what’s expected of him, and making sure that he understands the role of the RAMC personnel.”

Did Thomas dare to hope that he meant he’d tell Carson they weren’t meant to be polishing silver? “Yes, sir.”

Colonel Grantham added, “It’s not unreasonable to suppose that, since the household staff are doing some work in support of the convalescent home, that the convalescent home staff might occasionally return the favor. But he must understand that it _is_ a favor, and that the men’s official duties take precedence.”

So Carson _could_ try to make them polish silver again, if he was polite about it. And Thomas suspected he _would_ try. “Yes, sir. That seems fair,” he said, filing away the bit about official duties taking precedence, for when Carson needed reminding of it. 

“Meanwhile, I also expect you to continue, as you have been, to do what you can to smooth out this adjustment for everyone.”

Not open season on Carson, Thomas translated. Also fair, if not what he would have liked. “Yes, sir.”

“I understand that Mrs. Hughes, Mrs. Patmore, and Mrs. Coulter are all satisfied with your work in that regard,” the Colonel added. 

Thomas mentally filed that away, too, as a model for how to talk about the things your men hadn’t fucked up, without sounding stupid. “That’s kind of them to say, sir.”

“Finally, I understand that you found Carson’s handling of Henry’s…difficulties…distressing.” 

Now, Thomas supposed, he was going to hear about how it wasn’t any of his business how Carson handled his staff. He couldn’t argue with that—even if he could argue with Colonel Grantham about _anything_ —unless he wanted to let Carson interfere with how he managed _his_ people, but it was going to rankle. “Yes, sir.” 

“I appreciate your coming up with a solution. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea of dismissing him, but it didn’t seem like it would serve him well to force Carson to keep him on, either.”

Thomas wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say to that, so he went with, “Yes, sir,” which was usually a safe bet. 

“However, if a similar situation arises again, I’d like to be brought into the picture sooner.”

“Sir.”

“I’m sure you don’t wish to bear tales, but it seems that Carson may need more direction, when it comes to how we’d like the staff to be managed,” Colonel Grantham added.

The world tilted slightly on its axis, and Thomas realized that, if Carson was their NCO, and his lordship was their officer, it was, in fact, his lordship’s _fucking job_ to make sure Carson knew how to do his. “Yes, sir.”

“Very well. I won’t keep you from your duties any further.”

Thomas braced up again and left, trying to sort out what had just happened. 

The shape of things didn’t really become clear until near the end of the shift, when the men were taking the officers their dinners, and Thomas was in his office going over Sister Crawley’s suggestions for the next week’s duty roster. There was a tap on the open door, and then Anna peered around the linen shelves. “Oh, good,” she said. “I don’t have to track you down.”

“What is it now?” Thomas asked warily. 

“Mrs. Hughes wants to know if you’ll be joining us for dinner, or if you’d like a tray here.”

Thomas had, in fact, been wondering something similar, though it was more like whether he was going to be told off for being demanding, or informed that he was now banished from the servants’ hall until the war ended and Carson could finally be shot of him for good. “I’m not sure,” he said. How convenient that there was someone he could consult. “Did she give you any idea which answer she was looking for?”

With a glance toward the door, Anna said, “It might be best if you went on making yourself scarce for a day or two. His lordship’s laid down the law to Mr. Carson, and—well, I expect all of us would have trays elsewhere if we had the choice.”

“Oh?” Thomas said. 

“He was talking to people all day,” Anna said, perching on the edge of a chair. “His lordship, I mean. Not me, but Mr. Bates, and Mr. Carson, and Mrs. Patmore. Mrs. Hughes was with him for over an hour. He seems to have sorted out that Mr. Carson bullied Henry into a nervous breakdown. And that none of the convalescent home people can stand him. Mr. Carson was about that close to handing in his notice,” she held her fingers a fraction of an inch apart. “But he seems to have decided to stay.”

“What a shame,” Thomas said, because this was his office, and he could say what he liked in it. 

“Don’t say that,” Anna objected, but her heart didn’t seem to be in it, so Thomas ignored it.

“There must have been something in there about me,” he said instead. So far, this was all sounding almost too good to be true. 

Anna rolled her eyes slightly. “Yes, when he first brought up handing in his notice, he said he’d do it if his lordship didn’t get rid of you, somehow.”

That sounded more like it. “What did his lordship say?”

“That it would be a shame to lose him after all these years.”

Not in Thomas’s opinion. “And?”

“And then Mr. Carson hemmed and hawed a bit, and said he wasn’t having you back after the war, for all the tea in China.”

“I never thought he would,” Thomas pointed out. 

Anna frowned a bit at that, but said, “His lordship said they’d discuss that when the time came, but for the duration, he was to cooperate fully, and if he didn’t think he was able, he’d accept his notice.”

 _Fuck me blind_. “Are you saying,” Thomas said carefully, “that Carson said it was him or me, and his lordship….” _Picked me?_

“I don’t expect his lordship likes being pushed into a corner, no more than anyone else does,” Anna said. “If the next time, it’s you who picked the fight, he won’t like that, either.”

“Understood,” Thomas said. “I expect you’re right, about making myself scarce. He must be on a tear.” If Thomas was reeling from this sudden reversal of fortune, that had to go double for Carson. Something else occurred to him. “Where’s Lang? He can eat up here with me, if he wants.”

“He went to have supper with Mr. Basset,” Anna said. “He’ll move out tomorrow, if everything goes well.”

“Good,” Thomas said. “Who’s waiting at table tonight?”

Anna sighed. “Ethel and me.”

“That’s going to be fun,” Thomas noted. 

“At least it’s just the family,” Anna said, resignedly. She stood up. “Speaking of dinner, the dressing gong’s about to go.”

“See you…tomorrow, I guess.” It seemed strange that he wouldn’t be finishing the day downstairs, with everyone else. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note One: General Sir Herbert Strutt, Hero of the Somme, is not a real historical figure. However, the tactical mistakes attributed to him in this chapter did occur, and some of the military leaders responsible for them were mistakenly lauded as heroes, based on erroneous early reports that the battle was going well. Some of them were also quietly shuffled off to rear-echelon posts, after the extent of the disaster was understood. So that seemed like a good explanation for why the “Hero of the Somme” is driving around England with Matthew, visiting training camps—the Army wanted him out of active command, but it would be embarrassing to actually _demote_ him, after telling the public he was a hero, so they put him on PR duty instead. 
> 
> (I have a vague recollection that the career trajectory I have attributed to Strutt corresponds roughly to some genuine historical person, whom I read about in Hugh Sebag-Montefiore’s Somme book, but I don’t have the book anymore—it was an interlibrary loan—and I can’t find the story anywhere else. It’s possible I cobbled it together out of various details involving different people.)
> 
> Note Two: If you’re trying to picture the Ridiculous Epergne, it looks something like this: https://drexel.edu/now/archive/2012/January/From-the-Collection-Epergne/
> 
> The second, non-ridiculous one is shaped like this: https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/25163/lot/166/ , but with the palmy bit from this: https://www.sellingantiques.co.uk/552276/very-decorative-victorian-silver-plated-epergne-with-elephant-heads-and-a-palm-tree/ -still pretty fancy, but nowhere near as intricate (or difficult to polish!) as the first one. 
> 
> The cutting edge of fashion in table decor, at this point, would be something even _more_ streamlined, like this: https://www.etsy.com/hk-en/listing/565322035/vintage-sterling-silver-australian-hardy, but that’s too daring for Carson.


	27. Chapter 22: November, 1917

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The convalescent home patients are putting on a concert, Ward-Sister Crawley takes an interest in homeless veterans, and Matthew and William go missing--it's episode 3X04, _Solider's Heart_ -style.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, this is something of a table-setting chapter, checking in on a number of plots that, canonically, don't involve Thomas.

_10 November, 1917_

_Barrow—_

_Had a letter from Manning. He and a bunch of others have been transferred out to infantry. Him, Morris, and Cadman from our crowd. (The new lads are safe, as they’re not A-ones.) Manning says he’s pleased to get the chance to kill some Boche, but I’m not sure he means it. Anyway, they got Paris leave before they had to go join their new unit, and they had a drink with some Yanks. He says they’re all enormous, corn-fed types—did you see the newsreel when they paraded through Paris?—and they get paid more than us, so the girls won’t even give a Tommy the time of day if there’s an American to be had. Word is they even got around to doing some fighting last week._

_Back here in London, they’ve worked out the problem with my false foot, and I’m up and about pretty well now. They’ve let me out a few times now—pub, cinema—and everyone says that means a medical panel isn’t far behind. I don’t mind; it’s dead boring being in hospital when you aren’t ill._

_Mother’s keen on having me home once I get out, but I think I’d just as soon have Home Service. The MOs here say that it could go either way, but when that happens, they take into account what you want—a man who wants to work will try harder to overcome his disability, etc. I have hinted that a small hospital in the country would suit me well, so if you work things from your end, something may come of it._

_Rawlins_

“I’m afraid the news is worse than we thought,” Major Clarkson said. He’d been summoned to London to discuss personnel reassignments. They all knew what _that_ meant, so Thomas and Sister Crawley had planned to meet him on his return, to find out what the damage was, and sort out what they’d do about it. They were gathered now in the Major’s office in the hospital. “We’re losing half of the men—the most well-trained and physically fit, of course.” 

He passed a roster to Sister Crawley, who scanned it and said, “Was there nothing you could do?”

“They wanted Corporal Wiggins, as well,” Major Clarkson said. Wiggins had been promoted to Corporal a few weeks ago, at Thomas’s recommendation. “I had to pull all the strings I had to keep him.”

Sister Crawley handed Thomas the roster. The Major hadn’t been kidding about them losing their best—Palmer, Franklin, most of the original lot. “What are they giving us in the way of replacements, sir?”

“They promised us at least eight. Eventually. New recruits, and wounded men transferred in from other branches.”

Eight men, to replace eleven, and they’d be lucky to get half of them immediately. It tied in with what Rawlins had said in his letter, about men from the 47th being transferred out—they’d be pulling the most fit men they had to fill those places, and then the next-most fit to replace _them_ , and so on back to here, the rear of the rear. “It’s going to be tough, sir,” he said. 

“We’ll need to keep the most experienced ones, of those remaining to us, for the hospital,” Sister Crawley said. “I’m sorry, but the convalescent home duties are less exacting. The new men can begin there.”

She wasn’t wrong. “In that case, I’ll need Wiggins up at the convalescent home, to help train them.” Wiggins currently divided his time between the hospital and the convalescent home. “At least for the first couple of weeks.”

Sister Crawley shook her head. “We’ll have at least one convoy in that time, perhaps two. I might be able to do without him on the other days, but not those.”

“Convoy days here mean new patients up at the convalescent home, too,” Thomas pointed out—the ones moved out of the hospital to make room for the new arrivals. “They always need more watching when they first go up.” Not medically, so much as to help them find their way around the sprawling labyrinth of Downton Abbey, and to keep them from wandering into places they weren’t supposed to go. 

What they could do was swap Wiggins for one of the other relatively experienced men—Griff, maybe; he was staying—on those days. It wasn’t ideal, but it would just about work. But he wouldn’t suggest it just yet. There was something Sister Crawley usually said in discussions like this, and he wanted her to say it now. 

She didn’t disappoint. “What we need,” she declared, as though this would be news to anyone, “is another Corporal.”

“That’s easier said than done,” Major Clarkson reminded her. “As a matter of fact, I asked about that again when I met with the War Office; they said what they always say—there are none available.”

As a setup, it couldn’t be better. Thomas assumed a thoughtful expression, and Major Clarkson said, “Do you have an idea, Sergeant?”

“More of a passing thought, sir,” he said. “That friend of mine I told you about, from my old unit. His medical board’s coming up, and he thinks it’s likely he’ll be cleared for Home Service.”

Major Clarkson nodded. “They may already have something in mind for him,” he pointed out. “Remind me, what’s his disability?”

“He’s missing a foot, sir.” In other words, he’d be in a low enough fitness classification they had a chance of getting him. “I haven’t seen him since summer, but he says he’s getting around quite well on his artificial one.”

Sister Crawley chimed in, “Then a small hospital would be the best place for him. Some of the city ones, the orderlies and nurses walk miles in a shift.”

Looking thoughtful, Major Clarkson said, “And he’s a Corporal?”

“Yes, sir. He took over my old section when I was wounded, so I haven’t seen him in action as an NCO, but he was a great help when we got our new recruits in spring of ’16. If I’m going to run the convalescent home with only new men, there’s no one I’d rather have.” 

“What’s his name?” Major Clarkson asked, reaching for a pen. 

“Rawlins,” Thomas said, and spelled it. “P. Rawlins—I’m not sure of his first name.”

“And when’s his medical board?”

“It hasn’t been scheduled yet, sir, or hadn’t when he wrote to me. They just said it would be soon.”

“Good,” said Major Clarkson. “That makes it less likely someone else has already claimed him. I’ll see what I can do,” he promised.

With that decided, they moved on to the finer details of the duty roster. Most of the transfers wouldn’t be leaving for a couple of weeks, but three were going in a few days, requiring an immediate rearrangement. They went round and round on the subject for a while, but Thomas eventually had to concede that it made the most sense to reduce convalescent home complement by two, and the hospital’s by one. “I don’t know how I’ll manage it, sir, without the nurses taking on more of the heavy work,” he warned. “And you know how her ladyship feels about that.” The nurses themselves didn’t mind tending fires and mopping floors, but Lady Grantham objected strenuously. 

Major Clarkson sighed. “Is there _any_ way we could reduce the night shift to one?” 

Someone—Thomas thought it was Lady Grantham—had brought that up last week, when the staffing changes were only speculative. Very few of the convalescent home patients needed attention during the night, so there really wasn’t enough work for two men—but there was always the chance of an emergency, and if one arose, they’d need one man to attend to it and another to fetch Thomas from the top of the house. Thomas had promised to think about it, but hadn’t come up with much. “Is there any way the War Office would pay for a hall-boy?” he asked. “Someone under military age, who could look after the fires at night, and run for help in an emergency? Mr. Carson can’t spare one of his.” The house had recently gotten a second, after Carson had tried in vain to find another footman to replace Lang. “But if there was a third one, on similar terms as the kitchen and laundry helpers….”

Sister Crawley objected, “We can’t have a child working all night.”

“Hall boys are at least fourteen, ma’am,” Thomas pointed out. 

For some reason, Sister Crawley did not appear mollified by this information. Major Clarkson said, “The War Office is reluctant to employ boys under military age. Have you any other ideas?”

He had one more, but he didn’t like it much. “If we’re badly pressed, sir, I could kip in my office and be sort of on-call,” he said. “But I have a feeling if I’m right there, the threshold for an emergency is going to be a lot lower. Especially once we get new men in. Don’t know how long I’d be able to keep it up.”

“I agree, it’s not a long-term solution,” Major Clarkson said. 

“It might be,” Sister Crawley said. 

They both looked at her, Thomas with no small amount of surprise and betrayal. There’d been a bit of a distance between them, since he’d put her in her place about the convalescent home, but he hadn’t thought it reached the level of a falling-out. 

She went on, “What I mean is, it doesn’t have to be Sergeant Barrow every night, does it? The men could take turns being on-call, and also working a regular shift.” 

Now, why hadn’t Thomas thought of that? The only answer that sprang to mind was a slight inclination toward martyrdom, which he promptly put to one side as soon as he’d thought of it. “That could work,” he said slowly.

“It won’t be popular with the men,” Major Clarkson noted. 

“Not a bit, sir,” he agreed. “But if I take the first turn at it, that’ll take some of the sting out.” And by the time his turn came around again, they’d all know how irritating it was to be woken up for nothing when you had to put in a full day’s work the next day. Thinking aloud, he said, “We’ll keep the rotations short—a full week is probably too much. Three or four days. Breakfast and dinner in the servants’ hall, so they won’t be trudging back and forth to the village on top of it all. Might need you to put your foot down about that, sir,” he added. They might not—it was hard to guess what to expect, these days, from Carson. 

They decided to try it, starting at the beginning of next week, when the first of the transfers would be leaving. Thomas would go first, followed by Wiggins, and then Griff, who was both easygoing enough to accept an onerous assignment without too much grousing, and popular enough that his example would encourage the others. 

When the meeting finished, Sister Crawley walked outside with Thomas. “Must you rush back?” she asked. “I’d hoped to pick your brain about the blood grouping scheme.”

“I expect they can do without me for a bit longer,” he said. “What’s happening with it?” Thinking back, it seemed that Sister Crawley’s updates on the scheme had dwindled off. All of the nurses and orderlies had been tested for it in late summer, but Thomas didn’t remember hearing much about it since then.

“I haven’t been able to get as much support from the community as I’d like,” she explained. “That is, I’ve spoken to every committeewoman in the village about it, and they all think it’s a splendid idea and I’m sure to have many volunteers—but when it comes to actually testing them, everyone has a reason why she can’t. This one faints at the sight of blood, that one has too many obligations to commit to donating if suitable, and so on.” 

“I see,” Thomas said, wondering what she wanted him to do about it. “Well, a number of the household staff said they were willing, when we first discussed it. I could talk to them about it.” That might get them another handful of donors—even if they all got tested, only a few would be in the donor group—but it wouldn’t be as many as they needed. “What if you had a sort of…event, in the parish hall, or the school, or somewhere? If they see others being tested, it’ll seem like it’s the thing to do.”

“But whom will they see being tested?” Sister Crawley asked. “The problem is that no one is willing.”

“Get the orderlies and nurses to go again,” Thomas said. “You don’t actually have to test the repeat samples, just take them, for show. We’ll get some of the convalescent home patients to go, too—it’s not a _lot_ of help to have them on the roster, since by the time they’re well enough to donate, they’re almost well enough to leave, but the point is for people to see them doing it. And the household staff—the working-class people around here think we’re a bit grand, and—oh.” He stopped in his tracks. 

“What?”

“If we can get Lord Grantham or one of the ladies to do it, that’s the whole thing right there. Have him, or her, go in the middle of the morning, while everyone’s out going to the shops, and we have a group of orderlies or nurses or patients just before, so there’s a queue, and plenty of time for all the village gossips to see the Earl of Grantham doing his bit.” 

“I see,” she said. “Yes. Yes, that could work. And perhaps they get a sort of badge, to show they’ve taken part.” She glanced at the watch pinned to her blouse. “I shan’t have time to speak to Cousin Cora or Cousin Robert today, but perhaps tomorrow.”

If she tried to steamroller them into it, they’d kick. “Might be best to get the ball rolling before you approach them,” he suggested. “Decide where to have it, put up posters, and so on.” That would give Thomas some time to have Bates and Anna work on his lordship and the young ladies. O’Brien would be no help with Lady Grantham, but Lady Sybil might be able to handle her. “That way, they’ll already know it’s happening, and you can say you’re worried people won’t turn out, and so on.”

“I see,” she said. “In that case, I shall speak to the vicar tomorrow, about the parish hall. And perhaps he can put it in the pew bulletin—oh, there’s a great deal to do.”

There were, in fact, loads of details to sort out, and since that was precisely what Sister Crawley liked best, he left her happily working away at them. 

It was a cold day, but not wet, and Thomas forsook the curving drive to cut across the grounds. Sometimes he ran into Lang, doing that—he’d been unsure, when summer ended, if there was still much work for an under-gardener to do, but it seemed there was—but this time he ran into Nurse Crawley, instead, having a sly cigarette in the shelter of the folly they called the Etruscan Temple. 

She waved him over, so he leaned against the railing of the “temple” and lit a cigarette of his own. He told her the bad news about the personnel transfers, but she didn’t seem terribly interested—something else on her mind, Thomas guessed. He fell silent, and after a moment she said, “Do you think it’s possible for someone else to know your mind better than you yourself do?”

What kind of a question was that? “I don’t know,” he said, and then thought of Peter telling him that he’d like to live in a cottage with somebody nice, and keep house. Thomas had denied it, but Peter had been right. “Maybe. Sometimes.” 

“How do you know if it’s one of those times?” she asked. “Or if he’s—I mean, if the person is—just saying what they’d like to be true?”

 _What did Branson say to you this time_? He shrugged slightly, not sure what to say.

She went on, “If it _is_ true, wouldn’t you recognize it right away? Think, _Oh, yes, of course, that’s what I’ve been missing_?”

“Not necessarily.” The only way he knew how right Peter had been, was how it felt now, knowing it was even more impossible than it had been when Peter first suggested it. “Not if it’s something that…that it wouldn’t do you any good to admit it.”

“Hm,” she said. Tossing down her cigarette-end, she smoothed her nursing uniform. “Thank you, Sergeant.” 

Still unsure what that had been about—though he had a guess or two—Thomas walked with her up to the house. When they arrived, the rest of the nurses were leaving the breakfast room after their tea—Nurse Crawley must’ve cut hers short, or skipped it entirely, to sneak her cigarette and ponder whatever mysterious thing Branson had told her about herself.

Over the orderlies’ tea, Thomas gave the news to the men who were being transferred. Most were going to larger hospitals in England; Franklin and Cartwright to Base Hospitals in France. None of them were going into danger, but the atmosphere was still a bit solemn. When Thomas added that they wouldn’t be getting replacements immediately, and explained the new plan for night duty, it actually lightened the mood a bit, by giving them all something to grumble about. 

_You get close to people_ , Thomas thought, _and then they move you around like cattle._ Except that farmers knew that cows had friends. 

After tea, he made a walk through the wards, checking that everything was as it should be. As he passed through the recreation room, Lady Edith pulled him aside. “Sergeant,” she said. “I thought you should know—Major Bryant has been bothering one of the maids again.”

“Yes, my lady,” Thomas said automatically. “I’ll speak to him again. Do you happen to know which maid it was?” 

She sighed. “Ethel.” 

“I see. _Most_ of the maids make an effort to avoid him, my lady.” Ethel didn’t, because what was euphemistically described as “bothering the maids” did not, in fact, bother her. 

“I expect that’s wise,” she said. “I avoid him, as well.”

“His medical panel’s coming up,” Thomas offered. “I expect they’ll pass him through—he’s fully recovered—so he’ll be out of our hair before much longer.”

“I hope so,” she said. “But in the meantime, please speak to him.”

“I will, my lady.” 

She nodded, and went off to speak to one of the more likeable officers. 

As he finished his walk-through, Thomas wondered why Lady Edith had thought it necessary to tell him about Major Bryant and Ethel. She knew what the Major was like—her comment about avoiding him proved it. Perhaps she was just fed up, but Thomas decided to go downstairs and check with Mrs. Hughes, just in case there was something he was missing.

At the bottom of the stairs, he met Mr. Carson, who was about to take the family’s tea up. “Sergeant Barrow,” he said crisply. “How nice of you to join us. Is there anything you need?”

Since being ordered to adopt a more welcoming attitude to the convalescent home staff, and to Thomas in particular, Carson had taken to addressing him with exaggerated politeness. Thomas, after some consideration, had decide to find it funny. “And a very good day to you, Mr. Carson,” he said. “I was just looking for Mrs. Hughes.”

“I believe,” Carson said, “that she is in her sitting room.”

“Thank you,” Thomas said. 

Carson continued up the stairs, and Thomas went to Mrs. Hughes’ sitting room. She was indeed there, going over some household accounts, which she put aside willingly enough when he asked if she had a moment. 

Once they were seated in front of her fire, Thomas said, “Lady Edith told me she’d seen one of the officers bothering Ethel. I wanted to ask if she had said anything.”

Mrs. Hughes scoffed. “She didn’t have to; I saw the tail end of it.”

“Where were they?” If Ethel had gotten herself into deeper water than she’d planned—if Bryant had her penned in a cupboard or something—that might explain Lady Edith’s troubling herself.

“In the library. She was meant to be dusting the _small_ library, but I suppose the temptation was too much to resist.”

Just the usual sort of thing, then. “I’ll speak to him again, but there isn’t much I can do if she encourages him,” Thomas said. Harassing a respectable woman might be considered ungentlemanly behavior, a military offense in an officer, but flirting with a girl who flirted right back was well within bounds. 

“I’ve already spoken to her,” Mrs. Hughes said. “The trouble is, with so many girls in factories and doing war-work these days, it’s difficult to replace a maid, and she knows it.”

Since Thomas was here, he gave Mrs. Hughes the news of the men transferring out. “They’ve promised us at least eight men to replace the eleven we’re losing, but the new ones will arrive more slowly than the old ones leave, and they’ll have to be trained before they’re good for much. I don’t expect we’ll be able to spare anyone for extra projects for a while.” There were a few things she’d mentioned hoping the maids and orderlies could tackle together. Fortunately, the most significant of them—changing out the summer draperies for the winter ones—had been done last week. 

“That isn’t very convenient,” she noted. “But I suppose we’ll have to manage. Do you know where the men will be going? Not to the Front, I hope.”

“No,” Thomas said. “Not ours. They’re moving some men to the Front—that’s why all this shuffling about is happening—but none of the ones here are passed fit for active service. They’re mostly going to other hospitals in Britain, a couple to Base hospitals in France. They should be all right.” Unless the war dragged on long enough that they ran out of men in the higher fitness categories. Putting that grim thought aside, he added, “It’ll be tricky, losing so many at one go. Most of the new men will start out here, because the work’s less complicated than at the hospital. It’ll take some time for them to get used to the way we do things here. Most will have come from France, probably.” Thomas hoped she’d grasp the implication, that they would not have spent much time in mixed company recently. 

“I understand,” Mrs. Hughes said, and added tartly, “We might have to put a bell on Ethel.”

They spoke of one or two other minor matters and Thomas left, deciding to make a pass through the kitchen. Mrs. Patmore had been complaining lately about the kitchen helpers, but at the moment, at least, they seemed hard at work, preparing a small mountain of vegetables, likely destined for the patients’ and servants’ dinners. When she saw him, Daisy wiped her hands on her apron and called to Mrs. Patmore, “I’m going out to get the chickens!” Catching his eye, she jerked her head toward the door meaningfully—and not very subtly, either. 

Deciding he might as well find out what she wanted before she resorted to semaphore, Thomas headed outside, taking his cigarettes out of his pocket as he did so. He lit up while Daisy was messing around with the latch on the meat-safe, and waited.

“William’s coming,” she blurted out.

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but not that. “Why?” If he was wounded, Thomas thought she’d have opened with that.

“On leave,” she said. “Him and Captain Crawley.”

In Thomas’s experience, officers’ servants didn’t usually get to go on leave with them—but then, junior officers didn’t usually run back to England every other week, either. The rules must be different for a future Earl, even if he was pretending to be a provincial solicitor. “That’s nice.” 

Daisy scoffed. “What am I going to _do_?”

 _About what?_ An obvious answer presented itself. “Keep your knickers on and your knees together,” he said. This was Anna-approved advice; he couldn’t possibly get in trouble for saying it.

“ _Thomas_!”

It had been a long time since someone had said _Thomas!_ In that scandalized tone; he found he’d sort of missed it. 

“I didn’t mean like _that_ ,” she continued. 

Thomas took a drag on his cigarette. “Then what did you mean?”

“About him thinking we’re _engaged_?”

“Aren’t you?” He vaguely remembered her expressing some doubts before William’s last visit, but when the engagement had been announced, he’d had other things to worry about. 

“Not _really_ ,” she said, and explained, “When he started going on about having something important to ask me, I was trying to say what we talked about, about not being sure and just being friends for now, but Mrs. Patmore stuck her oar in and started going on about how it was just what I wanted.”

“She answered your proposal for you?” Was everyone here completely barmy?

“He looked so happy, I couldn’t tell him she were making it up,” Daisy said. 

When she put it that way, Thomas supposed she couldn’t. Idly, he wondered whether, in some world where people like him were normal, everyone would have shoved him at Peter, the way they shoved Daisy at William. And if they had, whether it would have helped. Pushing that thought aside, he asked, “Can you _now_?” 

Daisy sighed. “I thought you might have some idea.”

Nothing sprang to mind. “I don’t see how,” he said. “There isn’t another bloke, is there?” 

She shook her head quickly. “Nothing like that. Of course not. I just…I feel like I’m leading him up the garden path. Stringing him along, like.”

“Well, if he’s happier being strung along….” She didn’t look convinced, so Thomas added, “It’s not like letting him think you’re engaged is going to stop him finding someone else. The girls soldiers meet in France aren’t the kind you marry.” He remembered Griff’s line about men laying down their lives; William wasn’t even asking her to lie down. “Consider it a private contribution to the war effort,” he suggested. “Keeping his spirits up and all.”

“That’s what Mrs. Patmore says. That, and I can take back my promise later.”

She wasn’t wrong. “You didn’t seem that down in the dumps about it back when it happened,” he pointed out.

“Well, it were exciting, being engaged.”

Thomas supposed it would be, at least until the cold realization set in that one was engaged to _William_. “If I think of anything, I’ll let you know,” he said. “But don’t hold your breath.” 

She sighed again, and hefted a tub full of chickens out of the meat safe. “Get the door for me?”

By that night’s dinner, everyone had heard about William’s impending visit, and the subject dominated the conversation. It wasn’t until Daisy was bringing out the pudding that he managed to slip a word in edgewise about Sister Crawley’s blood grouping scheme. 

“Wouldn’t people rather be tested in private?” Mrs. Hughes asked, once Thomas had outlined the plan.

“That’s what she thought, but they keep putting her off,” Thomas explained. “We’re hoping that if everyone can see who’s doing their bit and who isn’t, it’ll be harder to refuse.”

“I can see that,” Bates said, nodding. “What is it you want from us?” Thomas attempted to look innocent, but Bates added, “You wouldn’t be telling us if you didn’t want us to do something.”

Bates had him there. “Well, it won’t work if nobody steps forward.” Thomas admitted. “We need some to go first, and set the example.” 

“I’ll do it,” Ethel said. 

“So will I,” Anna added. “What about you, Mr. Bates?”

She looked at him with an expression that was gooier than usual, and he returned it, saying, “If you are, then I suppose I must.”

A few others agreed to take part in the blood grouping fete, including Mrs. Hughes. Carson, when asked, only harrumphed. Mrs. Patmore, who came in to see what was keeping Daisy, proclaimed herself on the fence— “I won’t say but it’s a good thing, but I don’t know if I’d dare.”

In Daisy’s shoes, Thomas would probably have announced that Mrs. Patmore had been saying she wanted nothing more than the opportunity to give some of her blood to somebody else, but Daisy either didn’t think of it, or somehow restrained herself. 

Thomas didn’t think he ought to explain the second part of the plan—the part where they roped in at least one of the upstairs lot—in front of Carson, so when Daisy started clearing the table, Thomas caught Anna’s eye and inclined his head very slightly toward the door. She nodded just as minutely, but then spoiled it all by coming out right on his heels, and bringing _Bates_ with her. Honestly, he might as well have just _announced_ that they were coming outside to have a private talk.

While he was still in the process of lighting up, Anna burst out with, “Mr. Bates has had a letter.”

Thomas, his mouth occupied with the cigarette, raised an eyebrow. 

Bates sighed. “A friend of mine works at an hotel in Portsmouth,” he said. “He saw Vera there.”

Vera was Mr. Bates’s wife, but Thomas was still unsure why they were telling him this. “And?”

“With a man,” Anna added. “They signed the register as husband and wife, and spent the night.” 

Thomas opened his mouth, and closed it again. He could tell from Anna’s tone of voice that this was meant to be good news, but he wasn’t sure why. Vera had been stringing Bates along on the topic of divorce since before the war, saying she’d grant it if Bates promised this or paid for that. This wasn’t the first time Anna had gotten her hopes up. “How much difference does that make?” he asked. He knew how significant it could be if two men were caught in an hotel room together, but adultery wasn’t against the law. 

“All the difference in the world,” Bates proclaimed. “If she’s been unfaithful, and I can prove it, I don’t need her consent to divorce her.” 

Oh. Thomas thought quickly. “You haven’t written to her, have you? I mean, she doesn’t know that you know?”

“Not yet,” Bates said. “I have to think about how to make sure she can’t wriggle out of it.”

Yes, he most certainly did. “She’ll say your mate’s lying,” Thomas pointed out. “So the first thing you’ve got to do is get him to cut the page out of the hotel register.” 

Anna frowned. “Why?”

“So she—” As he started to answer, Thomas realized he had it backwards—he’d never been on this side of one of these situations before. “No, sorry, the first thing _she’d_ have to do is get the page out of the register. _You’ve_ got to make sure she can’t.” Separated from the hotel register, the page wouldn’t be worth much more than Bates’s friend’s word. “Have him spill some ink or something on it. On the blank pages. They might take it out of his wages, but you can pay him back for it.”

Now it was Bates’s turn to open his mouth and close it again. Anna, glancing back and forth between them, said, “Why, exactly?”

It occurred to Thomas that perhaps neither of them had ever been in one of these situations before, from _either_ side. “As long as the register’s sitting out on the front desk, it’s easy enough to nick a page out of it—all you have to do is have somebody lure the clerk away, then cut it out quick, while no one’s looking. If you’re careful to cut near the binding, no one will ever notice. Especially if the page you want is a few pages back from the current one.” 

“I see,” Bates said. “But if it’s obviously damaged, they’ll have to start a new one.”

“Exactly,” Thomas said. “And they’ll store the old one in the manager’s office, or somewhere like that—in case the police ever ask for it, to check somebody’s whereabouts on the night in question.” This detail, Thomas knew mainly from detective stories—the blokes he knew were usually more worried about blackmail, or word getting back to their wives. 

“Will he have put his real name, though?” Anna asked.

“Only if you’re really lucky, and he’s really stupid,” Thomas answered. “But even if it’s a false one, it’ll back up your mate’s story. And the handwriting could be matched to the man’s, maybe.” They were always doing that in detective stories, anyway. 

“Do you suppose she’ll think of it?” Anna asked Bates. “Stealing the page from the register, I mean.”

“Probably,” Bates said. “His mind works the same way hers does.” 

“Oi,” Thomas objected. 

Bates made an apologetic sort of shrug. “Do you have any other ideas?”

Thomas thought. “She hasn’t got much to lose, trying to brazen it out—has she?” A man accused of gross indecency would meet any halfway reasonable demand to avoid having the secret even hinted at publicly, but a divorced woman was an object of scandal whether she was a confirmed adulteress or not. “I mean, if you have her anything less than dead to rights, she might just as soon fight it as grant the divorce to keep it quiet.” 

“She might,” Bates agreed. “And probably would, if she thinks fighting it would make me suffer along with her.” 

“Then you’d better try and find out who the man is, before you tip your hand. If he’s married too, or if his job depends on him being respectable, he might put some pressure on her to go quietly, and keep him out of it. Once they know you know, they’ll be a lot more careful about covering their tracks.”

“How will we find out who he is?” Anna wondered aloud. “I don’t suppose your friend recognized him as a regular guest of the hotel?” she asked hopefully.

“He didn’t mention it,” Bates said. “But I expect he would have, if he did know the man.” 

“He might’ve put his real address, or the address of someone he knows,” Thomas suggested. “It’s harder to make up an address than a name.” At least, someone-or-other had made that observation, on an occasion requiring such subterfuge. It might have been George Hargraves. Or possibly Eliot Cavendish. Whomever it was, he’d confessed to putting the address of his club, for want of anything better, and that had been one of the times Thomas had resorted to register-page-nicking. 

Unfortunately, with that observation, Thomas reached the limits of his relevant experience. They kicked around several ideas for determining the identity of the man, but most were derived from detective stories—apparently Anna had read her share of them, too—and not at all practical for three amateurs, all of whom had jobs from which they would be missed if they, say, attempted to “stake out” the address from the hotel register, in hopes of spotting Vera’s paramour. 

“Where are the Baker Street Irregulars when you need them?” Bates mused.

“London Peculiars,” Thomas corrected abstractedly. They were all dead, was where they were. 

“What?” Anna asked. 

Belatedly, Thomas realized what he’d said. “Never you mind. I suppose the first thing is to get your friend to write you the details from the register, and a description of what the bloke looks like.”

The others agreed to this step, and Anna asked plaintively, “Can we go inside now? I’m freezing.”

They hadn’t talked about the blood donor plan yet, but Thomas was freezing, too, so he didn’t argue. 

_12 November, 1917_

_Rawlins—_

_That’s too bad about Manning and everyone. We just found out we’re losing about half our men—just to bigger hospitals, a couple to Base Hospitals in France, but I reckon they’re going down the line, sending the fittest men one step forward, all the way from the Front-line units back here to the rear of the rear._

_Works out all right for us, though, because whatever replacements we get will be green as grass, at least as far as hospital work goes. I told my CO I had a line on an experienced RAMC corporal who might be cleared for Home Service soon, and he’s pretty keen. Can’t promise anything, of course, but he’ll see what he can do._

_Things aren’t too bad here. We’re busy enough, and once the men start leaving, we’re all going to be working like one-legged men in an arse-kicking contest, but Carson’s still off my back. The patients are planning a concert, but luckily the Ladies of the House have Taken an Interest, so it isn’t making much extra work for me!_

_I did see that newsreel. I hope the Hun have seen it, too._

_Barrow_

_12 November, 1917_

_WT—_

_Rawlins is up on his feet (one natural, one artificial) and is expecting a medical panel soon. I talked my CO into trying to get him here, so he might write to Major Thwait to check his bona fides. We’re losing about half our men—the fittest and most experienced, natch—to larger hospitals, so I could use some help training whatever we get in the way of replacements, and Rawlins is pretty good at that. (This story has the advantage of being completely true!)_

_Hope you’re well._

_TB_

Leaving the tobacconist’s shop, Thomas noticed a man examining one of Mrs. Crawley’s posters, which was stuck in the window. Curious as to the effect her campaign was having on the _hoi polloi_ , Thomas fell in beside him and started opening the packet of cigarettes he’d just bought. The sign read:

Can You Save a Life?

Blood donors urgently needed

Find out more and learn if you are suitable

Under that was some fine print giving the location—the Parish Hall—and the date and times, and instructions to inquire at the hospital for further information. 

The man glanced over at him, his eyes flicking to the RAMC tabs on Thomas’s collar, and he said, “What’s this about, then, Sarge?”

Thomas launched into the now-familiar explanation of how blood transfusion worked, noting as he did so that the man was thin-faced and ragged, leaning on a battered wooden cane. He was of military age; the implication was obvious—he’d come home wounded and couldn’t work. Probably sleeping rough, or the nearest thing to it. Thomas thought of the highwaymen he and Nurse Crawley had joked about, last winter. 

The man listened to Thomas’s recitation with a pretense of interest, and at the end of it asked, “They pay you for that?”

“Fraid not,” Thomas said. “You get a cup of tea and a biscuit, but that’s about it.” 

The man looked as though he might think it worth it anyway—though Thomas didn’t think much of his chances of giving blood without fainting; he looked like a strong wind might blow him over. To buy himself time to think, Thomas took out a cigarette, offering the man one as he did so. 

The man took it, with a muttered “Cheers, mate.” 

Thomas lit his own cigarette and handed the man the matches—he’d had to buy flints for his lighter, too. “Tell you what, though. Stop by the hospital and ask to see the Ward Sister.” He wasn’t sure she ought to be bothered—Captain Crawley and William had been due back days ago, and no sign of them. But she did like organizing people’s lives for them, so it might be just the thing to take her mind off it. “She’s the one organizing it. Might have something you can do.” They both looked dubiously at the man’s cane, and Thomas added, “Hanging up more posters, or owt like that.”

“You think?” the man asked hopefully.

“We’re shorthanded.” It wasn’t a lie; six of the outgoing transfers had left already, and so far they’d had only two new men to replace them. More to the point, though, there was often something left after they’d given the patients their dinners, and it wouldn’t harm anyone if this bloke ate it. “Where’d you get your packet?” he asked. 

“The Somme,” the man said. “Where else?”

Thomas took a drag on his cigarette. “Me, too.” 

Looking him over, the man said, “Must not’ve been too bad.”

“No,” Thomas agreed. “I were lucky.” 

The man smiled humorlessly. “So were I. Compared to some.”

Walking back up to the house, Thomas tried to put the man out of his mind. It was easier once he got there, as there was plenty to occupy him. Dressing changes alone took longer than ever, with fewer men to do them and two of them needing to be shown how—and on top of that, the patients were busy practicing their performances for the concert, and several had to be tracked down and coaxed away from their rehearsals when it was their turn. 

With all that, they were late getting the main hall set up for the patients’ evening meal, and consequently just as late clearing it. Thomas was supervising the two new lads in moving the tables and chairs back against the walls when Carson came up to admit the Dowager Countess and Mrs. Crawley, who were dining with the family that night. 

At least Carson now refrained from commenting on the situation, and kept his huffing and glowering to a bare minimum. Still, Thomas breathed a sigh of relief when the two ladies arrived, and Carson’s attention was taken up with escorting them to the small library. 

His relief was short-lived. Mrs. Crawley broke away from the procession, calling, “Sergeant!”

Thomas did not quite brace up, but made sure he was standing up straight. “Ma’am,” he said. 

In ringing tones, she said, “Did you send a man to the hospital to speak to me, this afternoon?”

Carson had been continuing toward the small library, with the Dowager Countess in tow, but now turned his head to look at Thomas. Carefully ignoring him, Thomas said, “Yes, ma’am. He seemed to be in a bit of a bad way. I thought you might have some ideas.”

“Quite right,” she said. “He’s not been able to find work, because of his disability, but the War Office has refused him a pension.” Her tone was as indignant as if she’d been personally insulted. 

“Yes, ma’am,” Thomas said. That happened fairly often, the War Office having a different idea of whether or not a man was capable of work than a potential employer did. 

“And it seems he isn’t the only one,” she went on. “He says there are a number of others in the area who are similarly situated.”

She seemed to be waiting for him to say something. “Ma’am.”

“Well, I think it’s a disgrace,” she proclaimed. “These men have served our country, and now they’ve been abandoned.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Thomas agreed. What did she want him to do about it? 

She nodded crisply. “I mustn’t keep the others waiting, but we’ll speak more of this later.” With that, she rejoined Carson, who watched Thomas with an unreadable expression. 

Thomas supposed that Mrs. Crawley would re-mount her soapbox on this issue during dinner, but when he asked Anna—who’d been waiting at table, alongside Carson—whether anything interesting had happened, she shook her head and whispered, “Not here,” under cover of the sound of all of them sitting down. More loudly, she reported on the Dowager Countess quipping that Downton was now “’Like living in a second-rate hotel,’ she said.”

Thomas scoffed. “When’s she been in a second-rate hotel, I wonder?” 

Half the fun of saying things like that, these days, was watching Carson draw himself up and then remember he wasn’t allowed to scold Thomas anymore. 

After dinner, Anna followed Thomas out into the courtyard. “All right, what?” he said, lighting a cigarette.

Anna bit her lip. “At dinner, the Dowager was talking to Lady Sybil about…about how in war, one can make friendships that aren’t quite appropriate.”

For a half-second, Thomas wondered just what she was implying, before he remembered that everyone in the house knew better than to suspect him of an _inappropriate friendship_ with anyone female. 

She went on, “You haven’t said anything to anyone, have you?”

“No,” Thomas said scornfully, realizing after he said it that the correct response would have been _said anything about what?_ “You know about that too, do you?” In that case, she was in no position to cast stones about him keeping the information to himself. 

“She’s said a few things,” Anna admitted. “And…the night the General came.” 

“Yes?”

“The note I found. It was in her bedroom.” 

“He was _in her bedroom_?”

“No!” Anna said quickly. “It was on the floor, like he’d pushed it under the door,” she explained. “They haven’t…haven’t done anything more than talk. If they had, I’d have told someone.” 

“If it comes out, they’ll say you ought to have told someone anyway,” Thomas pointed out. 

“Like you have?” she asked.

“I don’t work for them,” Thomas reminded her. Then, grudgingly, he admitted, “So it’s the Ward-Sister I haven’t told. And technically, she only said I was to inform her if any of the nurses seemed to be getting too close to any of the patients or orderlies.”

From the look on Anna’s face, she knew as well as he did that that kind of parsing wouldn’t do him any good, if it came down to it. “I was hoping she’d get over it, before any of them found out,” she said. 

“They might not have,” Thomas pointed out. “If she knew any details, would the old lady really bring it up at _dinner_? In front of the servants?”

“Likely not,” Anna admitted. “But she must suspect.”

“Well, it’s nothing to do with me,” Thomas said. “What did Nurse Crawley say?”

“Just that her nursing kept her too busy for anything else, and then her ladyship changed the subject,” Anna reported. 

That was a little strange, too, but before Thomas could say so, the door opened and Bates stepped out, carrying Anna’s shawl over his arm. As he tucked it around her, she said, “I was just telling Thomas that you’ve had another letter.”

So Bates _didn’t_ know about Nurse Crawley and Branson. Interesting. 

“Yes,” Bates said. “My friend’s dealt with the register book, as you suggested—but more importantly, they’ve been back again. Two weeks, to the day, after their first rendezvous.”

“Sloppy,” Thomas noted. Things like that were how you got caught—though Mrs. Bates and her adulterous lover would have less to worry about on that score than anyone Thomas knew. “Might be one of them works nearby, and that’s their regular evening out.” 

Bates nodded. “Vera takes work as a lady’s maid, sometimes. At any rate, my friend had a good idea—he suggested I engage a private detective.” 

Oh—yes, he could do that, couldn’t he? Funny what options were available to you if you _weren’t breaking the law_. “Isn’t that expensive?”

“A bit, but he knows one or two, that come round the hotel from time to time, asking questions about this sort of thing—he thinks one of them might take it on at a discount, to keep on his good side. And if they’re foolish enough to keep using the same hotel, it won’t be a difficult job.”

“Good,” Thomas said vaguely. It sounded as though Bates’s mate had it all sewn up, so what did they want from him? 

No answer came; instead, Anna changed the subject to William and Captain Crawley. “What do you suppose could be keeping them?” 

There were a couple of obvious answers, but Thomas said only, “Could be anything.” 

A bit later that night, though, he found out that the news was a bit worse than any of them had known at the time. On his final walk-through of the wards before going up to bed, Thomas paused to tidy up the recreation room a bit—one of those little things that was being neglected now that they were so short-handed. As he was doing it, Mrs. Hughes came in, crossing the room to make sure that the French doors leading out to the terrace were latched.

“I checked those,” Thomas pointed out to her. 

Turning away from them, she said, “I’m sure you have. I suppose I’m feeling restless.” 

Thomas had the distinct impression that she wanted to tell him why. “Oh?”

“I expect you’ve heard that his lordship had a telephone call, during dinner.” 

Anna had not, in fact, disclosed that particular tidbit, but Thomas nodded knowingly and made an encouraging noise.

“It was the War Office.”

Thomas’s stomach dropped. Why, he couldn’t have said.

“It seems that Mr. Matthew and William went out on patrol a couple of days ago, and didn’t return.” 

That was never good. “Oh.” 

She went on, “I thought you might have some idea…well.” She smiled weakly. “What the reasons might be.”

 _Exactly what you think they are_. “There aren’t a lot of good ones, I’m afraid.” Wishing for a cigarette, Thomas took a deep breath. “Besides the obvious,” that they were captured or dead, “sometimes people who are wounded take shelter in a shell-hole, or something like that, and they aren’t found for a while. Did they say anything about the rest of the patrol—if anyone who went out with them made it back?”

Mrs. Hughes shook her head. “If they did, his lordship didn’t pass it along to Mr. Carson.”

No, he supposed he wouldn’t have. “If anyone from the patrol…was able to report what happened to them, they’d likely have told his lordship. They’d do everything they could to bring them back, if they were known to be wounded.” Or to bring back their identity discs, if they’d been killed. “If no one knows what became of them, that likely means either no one from the patrol made it back, or they got separated before…whatever happened.” 

“Do they often get separated?” Mrs. Hughes asked.

“Often enough.” Usually because things had gone completely to shit, but sometimes there was a survivor or two. “If the sector’s very active, it wouldn’t take much of an injury for one or two men on their own to decide the best thing is to take shelter somewhere and wait for things to quiet down.” That was the most hopeful scenario, really. “But if the sector’s very active, it’s also…you don’t send out a burial detail, if they’d be risking their lives to do it.”

Mrs. Hughes closed her eyes briefly. “I see.”

Thomas added, “If the sector’s quiet, then the fact that they haven’t,” _found the bodies_ , “been confirmed dead, is a good sign. But I don’t suppose we know anything about what the sector’s like.”

“No,” she agreed. 

“Depending on how wide no-man’s land is at that particular spot, there’s even a chance they’re just _lost_ ,” Thomas added. “Some places, the lines are so close together you can see what the enemy’s eating for breakfast, but others, they can be up to a mile apart. And the terrain changes every day, from shelling, so it’s easy to get turned around.”

“So they _could_ be all right.”

“They could.” Thomas hesitated. “It isn’t especially likely. But they could be.” 

Mrs. Hughes sighed. “I suppose that’s something.”

She helped him finish straightening up the room, but there wasn’t much to do, and they soon switched off the lights and went into the main hall. Thomas was wondering whether he ought to go and check on the night shift one more time—it was Griff and one of the new men—when the new man came out of the East Ward and hurried toward him. “Sarge,” he said. “Glad I caught you. I wasn’t sure if I ought to wake Griffiths or not, but….”

“What?” Thomas asked.

“I saw one of the officers going up that staircase we’re not supposed to go near.” 

Thomas and Mrs. Hughes exchanged a look. _That staircase_ was the one leading up to the maids’ bedrooms. “Thank you, Private,” Mrs. Hughes said, and hurried off that way. 

Thomas lingered long enough to ask, “Which officer was it?” As if he didn’t know.

“Don’t know all the names yet, Sarge,” he said apologetically. “Dark hair, moustache?”

“ _Bryant_ ,” Thomas growled. “Thanks—as you were.” 

He rushed after Mrs. Hughes, realizing only as they started up the Forbidden Staircase that he was, technically, not supposed to be there, either. But Mrs. Hughes didn’t stop him, though she did, at the top, gesture for him to stay back. She went about halfway down the corridor and quietly opened a door. After peering inside, she withdrew, closing the door as quietly as she’d opened it, and shook her head grimly.

Then, from behind the door nearest Thomas came a distinctly feminine giggle. He was about to throw open the door, before he remembered that this was the girls’ corridor, so there were plenty of legitimate reasons for a girl to be giggling here. 

Mrs. Hughes, however, didn’t seem to think so. She barreled up the corridor, and Thomas stepped aside just in time for _her_ to throw open the door. Switching on the electric lights, she revealed a sort of lumber room, with bits and bobs of old furniture—and a makeshift pallet, with two occupants.

“ _Ethel!”_ Mrs. Hughes thundered.

“Major,” Thomas said grimly. The pair were covered by a sheet, but it was clear enough even _without_ tallying up the clothing scattered around them that they didn’t have much on—if anything—underneath it. 

Major Bryant essayed, “We were only—”

“I know precisely what you were doing, Major,” Mrs. Hughes interrupted. “I may not be a woman of the world, but I don’t live in a sack.” As she spoke, Byrant started getting up, a sheet clutched around his waist. Fortunately, Ethel was left with another one, which she clutched to her chest, wide-eyed. 

Still, Thomas averted his eyes, and Mrs. Hughes averted hers, in the opposite direction, continuing, “Now, if you will _kindly_ collect your things and go downstairs!” 

Bryant grabbed his clothes and scuttled out, without so much as a backward glance for Ethel. Thomas hesitated, wondering precisely what his responsibility was. He was still trying to figure it out when Mrs. Hughes said, “Ethel, you are dismissed. Without notice and without a character. You will please leave before breakfast.”

 _Really?_ Ethel didn’t look like she believed it, either. “I didn’t think I—”

“No,” Mrs. Hughes said. “And that’s the problem. You never do.”

She left, sweeping past Thomas, her heels clicking down the corridor. Thomas glanced at Ethel, shrugged slightly, and pulled the door closed. 

He caught up to Mrs. Hughes on the stairs. “I suppose you _have_ to sack her,” he said uncertainly. 

“I do,” she said, looking straight ahead. 

“There isn’t anything you can—”

“No.” 

Thomas didn’t protest any further. It was, after all, the same outcome he’d have expected if he’d been stupid enough to get caught, any of the times he’d done exactly—well, nearly—what Ethel just had. Except that he’d have had to consider himself lucky not to have the police called. 

When they reached the first floor, Mrs. Hughes continued down the servants’ stairs, but Thomas let himself out into the guest corridor. He was just in time to see the tail end of Major Bryant’s sheet disappearing inside the door to the W.C. Thomas waited outside of it, and once again wished for a cigarette. 

At least the wait for the Major to put his clothes back on gave him a bit of time to plan. He didn’t know what his _official_ response would be, but this part was familiar enough—except that it was usually Theo or Peter who did the talking. Thomas’s job was to stand there looking menacing. 

Finally, Bryant emerged. “Sergeant,” he said, and made as though to walk down the corridor to his assigned bedroom. 

Thomas stepped into his path. “Major. Ethel’s been dismissed from her job.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Bryant said. “If you’ll excuse me—”

He moved to go around Thomas; Thomas blocked his path again. “Without notice or wages-in-lieu.”

Major Bryant stared at him for a moment, then chuckled. “Sergeant, if I were inclined to pay for it, I’d be a great deal more particular than _that_.”

 _Fuck_. Usually, if they didn’t take the hint, Thomas moved on to threats—but there wasn’t a lot he could threaten the Major with. He didn’t have much to fear from exposure of his deed, and they both knew striking an officer was a serious offense. He bluffed, “Colonel Grantham won’t like hearing of this.” 

“I don’t expect he will,” Bryant said. “But she’s of age, and came to me willingly. I’ll be back at the Front soon enough, and no one’s going to care what I got up to with a round-heeled housemaid. Now, Sergeant, stand aside.”

Lacking any better option, Thomas stood aside. 

#

“Would you like me to speak to her?” Anna suggested, checking the wardrobe as Ethel had asked. “Because I can.” All Ethel had said was that she’d been sacked, and had to leave before breakfast. 

“No, she wouldn’t listen,” Ethel said, her voice thick with tears. 

Anna found a blouse of Ethel’s and took it over to her. “She’s not a bad person, Mrs. Hughes. I know she can be strict, but she’s not—”

Ethel snatched the blouse out of her hands. “She wouldn’t listen.”

With that, Ethel started to cry openly. Anna, unsure what else to do, helped gather up a few more of her things. “Where will you go?” she asked. 

Shaking her head, Ethel said, “Don’t know. Not home.” 

Ethel never spoke about her home, and Anna never asked. She didn’t want to talk about hers, either. 

Whatever was happening, Anna had work to do, so she soon had to leave Ethel to her tears and get herself ready for the day. By the time she returned from taking her turn in the bathroom, Ethel had gone. 

When she got downstairs, Thomas was lingering by the door with his greatcoat on. At the sight of her, he took hers off its peg and shoved it at her. “Ethel’s gone,” he reported, as soon as they were outside. The courtyard’s flagstones were white with frost, and his breath steamed like smoke. 

“I know,” she said. “She wouldn’t say what happened, just that she’d been sacked, without notice.”

“Mrs. Hughes caught her and Major Bryant having it off,” he said. 

“ _What_?”

“I told him she’d been sacked, but he didn’t give a toss,” Thomas went on. “Not sure what to do.”

“Mrs. Hughes _won’t_ reconsider.” Now she knew why Ethel had been so sure. 

“I gathered,” Thomas said. He went on, as though continuing an earlier thought, “It’s not a crime, and he’s not married, so blackmail’s out. If he weren’t an officer, I’d get a couple of lads and rough him up a bit, but striking an officer’s a military offense—capital offense, technically. They wouldn’t really, but I’d lose my stripes for sure, and I don’t even _like_ her.” 

Anna shook her head. Every once in a while, it became startlingly clear that Thomas lived in a different world from the rest of them. “What is it you want Major Bryant to do?” she asked, once she’d pieced together the references to an officer and to blackmail. 

Thomas looked at her as though she were the one missing something obvious. “Pay her wages in lieu of notice.”

Good God. “She isn’t a _prostitute,”_ Anna whispered angrily. 

“No one said she is,” Thomas retorted. “She lost her job on account of him. Least he can do.”

It had, Anna reflected, been a long time since Thomas had said one of those things that made her not sure whether to slap him or feel sorry for him. “You’re saying,” she essayed, “that if something like that happened to,” _you_ , “one of your friends, you’d expect the gentleman to pay him?”

Thomas nodded as though she had just asked him to clarify that water was wet. “If he’s any sense of decency, yeah.”

 _Oh, Thomas_. “Ethel,” she said carefully, “is a woman. The decent thing for Major Bryant to do would be to marry her.” A sudden image bloomed in her imagination of Thomas seeking to beat and/or blackmail Bryant into doing just that. “And he won’t do that, either.”

If the situation hadn’t been so serious, Thomas’s look of puzzlement would have been funny. “So what is he supposed to do?”

Anna sighed. “Nothing,” she said. “He doesn’t have to do anything. Like you said, it isn’t a crime, and no one’s going to think any less of him for doing it.” Was it possible, somehow, that Thomas _didn’t know that_? “They’ll only think less of her, for letting him.”

Leaning back against the wall, Thomas lit a cigarette. “Well,” he said, around the cigarette. “He’s even more of a prick than I thought.” 

Anna might have quibbled with his language, but she didn’t disagree. “Yes.”

Taking the cigarette out of his mouth and blowing out smoke, Thomas said, “So he’ll be no help. What are we going to do?”

 _Do about what_? “You mean…about Ethel?” She wasn’t sure what else he could mean.

“Yeah.” 

“Nothing,” she said. “She made her bed; now it’s hers to lie in.” 

Thomas gave her a skeptical look. “You sure?”

Now that he mentioned it, Anna was starting to have doubts, but she said firmly, “I’m sure.”

They went in to breakfast. Nothing was said about Ethel, except for the new hall-boy asking where she was. Mrs. Hughes answered him with a sharp, “Never you mind.” But Anna found her eyes returning to Ethel’s empty seat, the way a tongue sought out a missing tooth. 

Ethel _had_ made her bed—how many times had Anna warned her that carrying on with Major Bryant was insane? The girl had insisted she’d no illusions about the Major marrying her—he was too far above their station—but she’d said he was “fun.” Well, she’d had her fun, and now she was a fallen woman. 

She wondered what Thomas _thought_ they should do—apart from extorting money out of the Major.

She wondered how it was that Thomas—scheming, prickly Thomas, who was a lot better now, but still not _nice_ —was the only one of them to even think they ought to do anything. 

#

“Daisy, you’re not to worry about William,” Mrs. Hughes announced, coming into the servants’ hall as Daisy was apathetically laying the table for luncheon. 

Thomas had come down a little while ago on the pretext of a mid-day cup of tea, wondering if there’d been any developments in any of the half-dozen or so crises that were currently going on. He’d found no one in the servants’ hall except O’Brien, which put paid to his hopes of information-gathering, but had stayed for the cup of tea, out of stubbornness. Now he looked up at Mrs. Hughes. Had she heard something new?

Apparently not. She went on, “I spoke to his lordship, and he says you’re not to be concerned until we know more.”

 _Right_ , Thomas thought. _Just_ order _her not to be concerned. That’ll work._

Daisy, to her credit, wasn’t buying it either. “But he is missing,” she said. “I mean, they don’t know where he is, or Captain Crawley.” 

In a soothing voice, Mrs. Hughes said, “There could be a hundred explanations.” 

“Yes,” O’Brien said tartly. “And one of them is that they’re dead.” 

Thomas had been thinking the same thing, but assumed an innocent expression as Mrs. Hughes gave O’Brien a shocked glare. Daisy, Thomas noticed, looked stricken. 

“Don’t mistake me,” O’Brien said, looking at Daisy. “I hope very much that they’re not. But we ought to face the truth.”

“What _may_ be true,” Mrs. Hughes corrected. “And very well may not.” She swept out, and after a moment, O’Brien got up and left, too. 

She’d be going to the courtyard for a smoke, Thomas reckoned, and for an instant he thought about following her. But now Daisy was slipping into the chair opposite him. 

“D’you think they are, then? Dead?”

Thomas hesitated. “It’s hard to say.” He’d been fairly discreet in what he’d told Mrs. Hughes, but he didn’t think he could say even that much to Daisy. “You know I’m not one to give false hope,” he said instead. “But there’s a chance they’re not.”

“How much of a chance?”

Honestly, Thomas didn’t know why everyone expected _him_ to know. “They’d have said, if anyone had….” No, he couldn’t say _seen them killed_ or _found the body_. “Any particular reason to believe they’d been killed. If they’re saying they don’t know, it’s because they don’t know.” 

Daisy nodded, tightly. “But…something bad has to have happened.”

There was only one way of answering that, and no way of softening the blow, either. “Yeah.” He went on, “They could be hurt, and trying to make their way back to our lines. You know if Captain Crawley was hurt, William wouldn’t leave him.”

“No,” Daisy said, looking hopeful. “No, I’m sure he wouldn’t.”

“ I doubt Captain Crawley’d leave William, either. Not unless they were sure of being able to send help back, at least.” Or, of course, one of them could be dead and the other injured, or both injured. “They could even have made it to a dressing station, or another unit’s aid post, or something, and just haven’t been reported. If it’s busy, keeping the casualty lists up to date isn’t anyone’s first priority.” If that was the case, though, with the War Office asking questions, they should get an answer soon. 

“That makes sense,” Daisy said. She twisted a corner of her apron in her hand. “What if they’ve been captured?”

Thomas wasn’t sure. “I don’t know exactly how it works, but they always told us, if we get wounded prisoners, we’re supposed to make sure we identify them, so their families can be informed.” That was a bit of a lie—what they really emphasized was that if a prisoner died, you were supposed to collect his identity discs. But presumably live prisoners were accounted for at some point. “It all goes through the Red Cross, so I expect it takes a while. But the arrangement is that we do it for them, so they do it for us. You’d get word eventually.” Well, Mrs. Crawley would, and William’s dad. Thomas wasn’t sure if they notified fiancées. 

Daisy shook her head. “Since we found out, everyone looks at me like….”

Like they had looked at him, in the days between the sinking of the _Albion_ and the telegram, Thomas thought. “Yeah.” 

“I don’t know what I’m meant to do. Just keep on—I mean, we don’t _know_ that anything has happened.”

“I know,” Thomas said. 

She looked down at her hands. “This…this is what it was like when Mr. Fitzroy….”

“Yes.” Thomas lit a cigarette. “If I knew how to make it easier, I’d tell you. But I don’t.” 

“Daisy!” Mrs. Patmore’s voice came up the corridor from the kitchen, followed by the woman herself. “What are you dawdling about for?”

It was the sort of thing she normally said, but on her face was that look Daisy had been talking about. Pity, covered over with a mask of _everything is all right_ and a touch of _maybe if we pretend nothing’s happened, nothing will_. “Yes, Mrs. Patmore,” Daisy said, jumping to her feet and making a show of gathering up the lunch things. 

If Daisy was getting back to work, Thomas supposed he ought to, as well. Going upstairs, he chased a few men out of the orderlies’ room—the new men, in particular, had a tendency to grind to a stop if he took his eyes off them—and then settled in to some of his ever-present paperwork. 

He’d managed to get a bit done when Nurse Crawley came in, with the numbers he needed for some supplies requests. After handing them over she lingered, talking aimlessly about the organization of the supply room. 

Thomas couldn’t exactly chase _her_ out, but he could use her loitering more productively. When she touched on the subject of intravenous saline, he said, “Speaking of that, what do you think of Sister Crawley’s blood-grouping drive?” She had decided recently on that name for it—like a whist drive, or, more to the point, a scrap-metal-collecting drive. 

Nurse Crawley easily accepted the change of subject, and nattered on for a while about the value of blood transfusion and the need for more donors—all things Thomas knew at least as well as she did, but he was glad she was enthusiastic about the project. Anna and Bates had dutifully spoken to their respective charges about the project, emphasizing that many of the servants would be taking part, but had stopped short of actually pressing Colonel Grantham or the young ladies to do likewise. Thomas had decided it was time to bring in bigger guns. 

Eventually, Nurse Crawley said, “The difficulty will be getting people to turn out to be tested. No-one’s going to want to be first.” 

“Well, she can count on the servants,” Thomas said. “I’ve talked most of them into doing their bit.”

“Have you ?” She looked interested. “Who is going?”

“Anna and Mr. Bates, Mrs. Hughes….” As Thomas went on listing them, he realized why she was probably asking. “I haven’t had a chance to speak to the outdoor staff.” 

“I could do that,” she said eagerly. 

Thomas just bet she could. “That would be a help,” he said, straight-faced. 

“And then he’ll see,” she went on. “ _Bringing hot drinks to a lot of randy officers_. That’s what he said my work is. I should have slapped him.”

Thomas probably would have—or punched him, rather. Despite recent evidence of one specific officer’s randiness. “What brought that on?” he wondered. If it was a sign that her and Branson’s….whatever-it-was was dying a natural death, he likely ought to encourage it. 

Except that if she kept on about this subject, she was bound to mention a name sooner or later, and then he’d really be unable to pretend ignorance. 

He was already regretting asking the question, and regretted it even more when she answered it. “We were talking about what we’re going to do after the war,” she said. “He wants to go back to Ireland, and join the rebellion.” She peered through the linen shelves, checking that they were alone. “And he wants me to go with him.”

 _Oh, fuck_. That was precisely the kind of direct and certain knowledge that Thomas was better off not having, if he wanted a quiet life. 

“I don’t know if I’m going to,” she went on. “I’m not even certain that I like him that way. And of course my parents wouldn’t understand. Or my sisters. Do you know what Mary said?”

 _Oh, thank God_. If no less than Lady Mary knew about this, then surely he could claim to believe that the matter was well in hand, and there was no call for him to speak up.

“ _This isn’t fairyland. Do you think you’ll marry the chauffeur, and we’ll all come to tea_?” she said, in a stuck-up voice that Thomas supposed was meant to be Lady Mary’s. “He isn’t _just_ a chauffeur,” she continued, in her normal voice. “He’s a person. A very interesting person. He has thoughts and ideas.” 

Yes, they all knew plenty about Branson’s thoughts and ideas. Thomas thought in vain of how he could get her back on the subject of the blood grouping drive. Or organizing the supplies room. He was in no position to be choosy. 

“But _he_ doesn’t understand, either,” she added. “I suppose he just sees—well, the clothes, and the house, and the grand dinners, and…but they _are_ my family. We may not be the same as other families, but I wouldn’t want to lose them forever.” 

Her mention of losing them forever made Thomas wonder if she knew that Captain Crawley was missing. If she did, Thomas wondered at her ability to be so preoccupied with her fling with the chauffeur—or at Lady Mary’s to make cutting remarks about fairyland, for that matter. Perhaps Colonel Grantham had decided not to trouble the ladies until more was known. “No, of course not,” Thomas agreed.

She sighed. “But I don’t want to lose _him_ forever, either.” She studied her hands, folded in her lap, for a moment. “He says they’ll come round, eventually. I wish I could believe him. Do you think they will?”

Thomas half-wanted to point out that they were _her family_ ; all he did was stick their dinners in front of them. He settled on a gentler version. “You know them better than he does.” 

“I suppose I do. But I don’t know how they’ll react to…to something like this.”

By sacking Branson, probably. And making sure the next chauffeur they hired was over forty and had halitosis or ear-hair or something. 

Thomas was saved from having to come up with a response by another of the VAD’s sticking her head in the door. “Nurse Crawley? Weren’t you going to help me with Captain Ainsley’s therapy?”

“Oh!” She jumped to her feet. “Yes, of course. I’ll be right there. Sergeant, I’ll speak to my family about the blood grouping drive. I’m sure some of them will want to help.” 

“Excellent,” Thomas said. “Thank you, Nurse Crawley.”

They had not, as far as Thomas could recall, actually talked about her persuading the family to lend their support to the blood grouping drive, but when Thomas checked with her about it later, she said that she would, and then kept him up to date on her progress.

A few days later, when he met with Sister Crawley at the hospital to go over the next duty roster, he was able to report that Lady Edith had agreed to take part, and Lady Mary and Colonel Grantham were taking it under consideration. “Lady Grantham has meetings that day in Ripon, apparently.”

“The other three should be enough,” Sister Crawley said distractedly. They’d had no more news about Captain Crawley—despite Colonel Grantham being on the telephone to the War Office every other minute—so her heart wasn’t in it. 

She said nothing about the crippled ex-soldier, either, and agreed without argument to whatever he suggested about the duty roster. Thomas managed to resist the temptation to take advantage of the situation to nab some of the more experienced and reliable personnel for the convalescent home—they’d be needed more at the hospital, with the Ward Sister so preoccupied. 

He also abandoned his half-thought-out notion of asking her views on Ethel’s predicament. He’d duly reported the incident to Major Clarkson, who had confirmed—mostly through what he _didn’t_ say—Bryant’s claim that no one would care about what he’d done. “I’ll speak to him again about being on his best behavior,” he’d said, “but he won’t be with us much longer, before his medical panel.”

Sister Crawley, he thought, could normally be relied upon to take a more active approach to the matter, but even so, Thomas was unsure whether she’d intervene to help Ethel, or to make trouble for Major Bryant—the latter of which would undoubtedly roll downhill. Now, with things being anything but normal, there was no guessing _what_ she might do. The orderlies working at the hospital this week had reported that she went from seeming in a daze to being snappish and short-tempered. Thomas had had to explain to them that her son was missing, to prevent riot. 

As they wrapped up the meeting, she said, “I don’t suppose that Cousin Robert has…found out anything.”

“No, ma’am,” Thomas said. “I’m sure if he did, you’d be the next to hear.”

“Yes, of course,” she said, moving her copy of the duty roster from one hand to the other, as though she’d forgotten why she had it. “I may be late to the concert tonight. I’ll need to make sure everything is settled here before I can go up.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He hesitated. “I’m sure no one could object if you missed it. In the circumstances.”

She drew herself up. “No, we must carry on. The patients are looking forward to it.”

Thomas couldn’t really argue with that—although if he’d had an excuse to miss the concert, he’d take it like a shot; the rehearsals were bad enough—and started back for the house.

The mood at the house was strange that evening. The patients, who knew nothing of Captain Crawley and William’s disappearance, were in uncomplicated high spirits about the change in routine. The performers were nervous or excited according to their temperaments, and their friends either bucking them up with encouraging words or teasing them about the prospect of disaster, according to _their_ temperaments. Anna reported that Lady Mary, who’d been given the news the night before—almost the last to know, apart from Lady Grantham—had wanted to bow out of performing, but Colonel Grantham had given her a stern lecture about carrying on and not spoiling the patients’ good time. The rest of the family and household staff, in a similar light, were going around with pasted-on smiles.

The convalescent home staff, in mirror image, assumed grave expressions whenever they came in contact with the family or household. They were universally aware of the situation—some because they’d required an explanation of Sister Crawley’s state of mind, some through ordinary gossip—but at this point in the war, they’d all seen too many horrors to be bothered much about a couple of complete strangers going missing in action. It was far easier to share in the patients’ excitement about the concert, since a thing like _that_ didn’t happen every day. 

Thomas didn’t much care either way. The concert was nothing to him, except a bit of extra work, and he supposed he’d be sorry if William and Captain Crawley were dead, but _he’d_ seen too many horrors to be bothered much about a couple of acquaintances.

Well, except for the small and vicious part of him that, at odd moments, popped up to whisper in his ear _, But if they are, then they’d all_ know. _They’d know what it’s like, and wouldn’t that serve them right?_

Mostly, Thomas put those thoughts aside and concentrated on directing the men in setting up chairs—a motley assortment, scavenged from all over the house—and then in getting the wheelchair cases into position at the front of the audience. 

When the concert began, he stood at the back, between the servants and the orderlies. There were recitations, songs, and then, like a punch in the gut, a cross-talk act featuring an artillery Captain in comedy drag. Nearly everyone found it hilarious, except for Carson, who turned to granite and fixed his eyes on a point two or three yards to the right of the improvised stage, and Thomas, who thought of Syl and felt like weeping. 

A few turns later came Major Bryant, doing an execrable magic act—handkerchiefs out of the sleeve, flowers out of a hat, that sort of thing—and then Lady Mary and Lady Edith. Lady Edith had been playing piano for most of the other acts, but Lady Mary made a grand entrance, proclaiming something about “how rare it is to see my sister Edith and I pulling together in a double act, but in wartime, we, like all of you, have more important things to worry about.”

Thomas wondered when she’d come up with _that_ introduction. A week ago, he’d have hoped she’d choke on it, but now, he supposed, it was true. 

She started singing, “Sometimes when I feel blue….”

Not for the first time, Thomas wondered why, as the sole two female performers—unless the artillery Captain counted—they’d chosen a lover’s duet. It was a crowd-pleaser, though, with most of the audience joining in on the chorus: “If you were only girl in the world, and I were the only boy….”

Then, near the end of the song, Lady Mary’s voice faltered, her eyes fixed on a point to her right. Thomas had half a second to wonder if she was about to break down, and if so, what ought to be done about it, before he heard a gasp from someone among the servants. He looked over, and saw William and Captain Crawley. 

His stomach plunged down into his boots, and he missed the next few moments. There was movement, glad cries, Sister Crawley embracing Captain Crawley. Thomas stood rooted to the spot, staring at the point that had so arrested Carson’s attention during the drag act. 

Captain Crawley said something about not stopping on his account, and picked up the song where they had left off. They sang the last few lines, the audience joining in again, and the moment it was over—it was the last act—Thomas found himself striding over to the green baize door, and then clattering down the steps, as if to outrun…he didn’t know what. 

He didn’t know why he’d come down here. His office would have made more sense. Or his bedroom. Suddenly, both of those places seemed very far away. He scrubbed his hand across his face, and thought he might be sick. 

Another set of footsteps was coming down the stairs—lighter than his own, but just as quick. “Thomas?” Anna called.

He had to get rid of her, before she saw him puking—or worse, crying. “I’m—” _All right_ , he was going to say, or maybe _fine_. What came out instead was a sob. 

“Thomas,” she said, more gently. 

“Go away.” 

Instead, she put a hand on his shoulder, _tsk_ ing. “We’re all a bit overwhelmed,” she began.

Thomas shook his head. “I don’t—I don’t care about _them_. It’s not….” He knew how petulant and childish it sounded, even as he was saying it. “It isn’t _fair_. She doesn’t even _want_ to marry him, but _she_ gets him back?”

“Oh,” she said. “Thomas….”

“Shut up.” With trembling hands, Thomas took out his cigarettes, opening the case away from him so he wouldn’t see the picture. Peter lit it for him, though, because he always did. “It isn’t….” He shook his head. “I’m only saying.” 

Anna said “There, there,” or something like that, and led him into the boot room. Good thinking; anyone could come down and see him bawling at the bottom of the steps. 

Also, he could grab a saucer to use as an ash-tray. Mrs. Patmore wouldn’t like it, but they’d all like it even less if he got ashes on the floor. With his luck, he’d probably drop the coal and burn the house down. 

Anna disappeared for a bit, and came back with a cup of tea. “Drink this up,” she said. “You’ll feel better.”

He wouldn’t, Thomas knew, but he’d have to stop crying to do it. That was nearly the same thing. Obediently, he drank it. “Aren’t you supposed to be serving the punch?” he asked, once he’d gotten a grip on himself. 

“Someone else can do it,” she said. “You’re—you’re thinking about Mr. Fitzroy? That’s what this is?”

“ _What else would it be?”_ Thomas almost shrieked. 

She took a deep breath, and said calmly, “You’ve barely mentioned him since you’ve been back.”

“Barely mentioned him when he was alive, did I?” Thomas snarled. That wasn’t really true—there had been a few months, between the start of the war and Peter’s death, where the subject had been, somehow, miraculously, _speakable_. 

“You can,” she said. “If it would help.”

“It won’t.” Nothing would help. “He’s still going to be dead.” That was nothing new, it had never been any different, but…. “The war’s going to end, and he’s still going to be dead.” 

“Well, yes,” Anna said cautiously. 

She was too polite—or perhaps too afraid of setting him off again—to ask why he was stating the obvious, but of course he had to sound mad. “I just haven’t been thinking about it,” he said. “This—the Front, the hospital, the convalescent home—it’s not real life. But one day it’ll all be over, and….”

“And then you’ll have to face it,” Anna said. 

He nodded. “Right now, it’s like…nobody’s really alive. Men, I mean. We’re just…not dead yet. But once it’s over, then we’ll know. We’ll know who’s made it through, and then the dead will really be dead.” The explanation, Thomas thought, couldn’t have made him sound any _less_ mad. “And that’s what it’ll be like,” he added, jerking his thumb up at the ceiling. “Some of them come back to life, and the lucky ones so happy.” Sniffling, he wiped his eyes. “It isn’t just Peter. If I had Peter, I wouldn’t mind about the rest of them, but everyone I knew before the war is dead.” He sniffled again. God, crying was disgusting. “On top of everything else, I’m going to have to find a job, and I’ve never actually done that without Theo.” Even the job here, Theo had known someone, who’d known someone. 

“Theo?” Anna asked. 

How to explain Theo? “He was a butler,” Thomas said. “I watched him die.” 

Suddenly, he remembered O’Brien asking, in a fury of grief, _Why are you still here_? No wonder she hated him. Was that why he hated Carson so much more, now? Because he was alive, when Theo wasn’t? 

“He looked out for us,” Thomas added. “All of us. He joined up to look after Syl, only Syl died first. They made him a sergeant. Bet he was good at it.”

“Go on,” Anna said, when he fell silent.

Thomas shook his head. “Got to get a grip on meself.” He lit another cigarette. “They’ll be wondering what we’re up to.” 

Anna opened her mouth, then closed it again. “I’ll get you some more tea.” 

She fetched it, and Thomas pulled himself together. Making a few remarks about the quality of the various performances—prior to the dramatic finale—helped to put him back on an even keel, and he was just about ready to go back upstairs when there was a knock at the back door. 

With a quick glance at him, Anna went to answer it. “What are you doing here?” Thomas heard her demand of whomever it was. “You can’t be here.”

“I need to see Major Bryant,” Ethel said. 

Thomas stepped out of the boot room. “What’s going on?” he asked. Ethel wore a sort of cardigan, too light for the weather. 

“Sergeant,” Anna said. “Would you go and fetch Mrs. Hughes, please?”

Thomas half-expected Ethel to turn tail and run at that, and Anna might’ve thought so, too. But she didn’t, and after a moment Thomas said, “All right.” 

Mrs. Hughes was talking to William, who seemed to have been explaining their disappearance. “—let us go on leave straight from the dressing station,” he was saying. “We’d no idea you were worrying.” 

Thomas nodded to him. “Mrs. Hughes, Anna needs you downstairs.” 

Mrs. Hughes looked at him with some alarm, then told William, “I’ll want to hear the rest later.” As they started for the back stairs, she asked, “What’s happened? You left in quite a hurry.”

“Ethel,” Thomas said. If she thought that answered both parts of her question, that was her look-out. 

Downstairs, Anna had let Ethel inside the house, but only into the corridor. “—couldn’t stand it no more,” she was saying. Looking up the stairs, she added, “Mrs. Hughes, you’ve got to help me.”

“I haven’t _got_ to do anything,” Mrs. Hughes said sharply. “But what do you mean? Help with what?”

Ethel hugged her arms around herself. “I need to see Major Bryant,” she said. 

“It’s seeing him that got you into trouble in the first place,” Mrs. Hughes pointed out. 

“That’s just it,” she said, her lip trembling. “I _am_ in trouble.”

Anna gasped. “You don’t mean—”

Closing her eyes, Ethel nodded. “I’m going to have a baby.”

 _Fuck me blind_. 

Mrs. Hughes recovered first, and asked, “Does he know?”

“I wrote to him,” she said. “A bunch of letters. He hasn’t answered. He is….” She looked hopeful. “Has he gone back to the Front? Maybe he hasn’t gotten them.” 

“He’s here,” Thomas said. “Shall I go and get him?”

“No,” said Mrs. Hughes, firmly. “We can’t have a scene,” she added, glancing from Ethel to Thomas. 

Thomas objected, “Surely he’s got to—”

“We can’t have a scene,” Mrs. Hughes repeated. “Nor can we discuss this standing in the passageway. Come here.” 

She took Ethel into her sitting room, closing the door firmly, with Anna and Thomas on the outside of it.

In unspoken agreement, they retreated to the boot room. “He’s _got_ to marry her now,” Thomas pointed out.

Anna made a sound that was half a sigh, half a laugh. “If he meant to do that, he’d have answered her letters.”

“Can’t he be made to?” Thomas had a vague idea that that had happened a time or two, on his street growing up. 

“If he was working-class, maybe. Or if she was middle-class. But not as it is.” Anna shook her head. “She might have some idea of convincing him, but she’s fooling herself.” 

“What will she do, then?” It was hard enough finding a place without a reference. Once her pregnancy became obvious, it would be impossible.

“I don’t know,” Anna said. “I expect she doesn’t either.”

In due course, the rest of the servants came down to eat a cold supper. Thomas half-listened to William telling a jumbled tale of becoming lost while on patrol, ending up behind a much larger German patrol, and hiding—as Thomas had suggested to Mrs. Hughes—in a shell hole. “Three days we were stuck there, with nowt to eat once our iron rations were gone.” After that they’d had some more misadventures before ending up in an Advanced Dressing station, suffering from hunger and exposure. 

Somewhere in the middle of the tale, Mrs. Hughes turned up. Ethel wasn’t with her. When the party broke up, she drew Thomas aside. “I promised Ethel that we’d make certain that Major Bryant was aware of her…situation,” she said. “In case her letters—all of her letters—somehow went astray. I’ll entrust that to you, Sergeant, if you don’t mind.”

Thomas nodded. “All right.” He hesitated. Something else had occurred to him, while William had been yammering on, but it was the sort of thing you weren’t supposed to say. “Is she…certain it was him?”

Mrs. Hughes gave him a sharp look.

“I’m just saying, if there’s any chance it was Griff, we can put some pressure on him.” The threat of reporting his conduct to Major Clarkson, to begin with, and if that didn’t work, Thomas rough beat _him_ up without fear of court-martial. “Even if she thinks it probably wasn’t, if it’s _possible_ ….” What Griff didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. Or the unborn child. 

“She didn’t say,” Mrs. Hughes answered. “And I hesitate to ask, for fear of putting the idea in her head.”

Thomas was about to point out that _Griff_ would know for sure if she was lying, but then realized that if she said they had, and he said they hadn’t, there’d be no way of knowing which of them was lying. “I’ll ask him,” he suggested. “There’s been no gossip among the orderlies about what became of her, so he won’t know there’s an even more obvious candidate.” And if he confessed, there was no need to tell him. 

“That might be wise,” Mrs. Hughes agreed. “I like to think I’d have noticed if she were carrying on with _two_ men under this roof, but…well, if there is any chance he’s the one responsible, then he might as well take responsibility.”

“Right,” Thomas said. Griff was still on night duty, so there was no need to waste any time—or to have this conversation at a time when prying ears were likely. 

Mentally, he began running through the list of available men. He’d want some backup. William was too fresh-faced, the hall-boys too scrawny, and Carson…Thomas wouldn’t ask Carson to piss on him if he were on fire. “I’ll get Bates to help,” he said reluctantly. “Always best to have the advantage of numbers, this kind of thing.” 

Not that Thomas had ever done _precisely_ this kind of thing, but the same principle would apply.

He found Anna and Bates in the boot room, talking quietly. She’d evidently brought him up to date on the Ethel situation, and he readily agreed to meet Thomas in his office after he’d finished putting his lordship to bed. 

That also gave Thomas time to attend to his own work. A number of the orderlies had stayed for the concert and to get the patients settled down again afterwards, but without Thomas there to chivvy them, they’d gravitated instead to the refreshments table. 

Thomas took the opportunity to shoo them toward their work—and make sure that they were well out of earshot—before zeroing in on Major Bryant. He was talking to a couple of other officers. When Thomas approached, he made a point—at least, Thomas suspected he was making a point—of finishing his anecdote before saying, “What is it, Sergeant?”

Thomas looked meaningfully at the other two officers. “You might rather discuss it privately, sir.”

Bryant glanced at them. “I doubt that. Go on.”

Prick. “A friend of yours has turned up,” he said. “Wanting to know if you’ve been getting her letters. About her being in a family way.”

“I have,” he said “Is that all?”

“Bryant,” one of the other officers began, his tone disapproving. 

“It’s nothing to do with me,” Bryant told him casually. Turning back to Thomas he repeated, “Is that all?”

Thomas said “Yes, sir,” because he didn’t have any other choice.

The patients were in no more of a hurry to be herded off to bed than the orderlies were to herd them, so by the time Thomas made it to his office—leaving Griff and the other night-man to finish setting the main hall back to rights—Bates was already there. 

“You all right?” he asked, eyeing Thomas with suspicion. Or maybe it was concern. They looked similar, on Bates. 

“Fine,” Thomas said. Had Anna told him about him falling apart like that? 

Fortunately, Bates didn’t press. “So what is it we’re doing here?”

Thomas had given it a bit of thought. “We’re _not_ telling him that Ethel’s pointed the finger at him,” he said. “But if he should happen to get the idea that she has….”

“I see. Do you think it’s likely, that he’s…?”

“Not particularly. But Major Bryant’s made clear he’s not going to take responsibility.” 

Bates looked skeptical. “You want to trick him into marrying her while she’s carrying another man’s bastard?”

“Only if there’s a chance it’s _his_ bastard,” Thomas said. 

Bates considered. “I suppose if he did…if there’s a chance, he’s just as guilty,” he admitted. 

“Anyway, all you have to do is stand there and look tough,” Thomas added. “You can manage that, can’t you? It’s the easy part.”

With obvious reluctance, Bates agreed. Thomas went and fetched Griff. 

“What is it, Sarge?” he asked, coming into the orderlies’ room. Bates was on his blind side as he entered, and when Griff saw him, he started. “Look, mate, all I said was that she looked pretty. I know she’s your girl.”

Bates really was doing an excellent job of looking menacing. “What?” he said. 

“We’re not here to talk about Anna,” Thomas interrupted, before they could get too far off track. Making a few small adjustments to his expression, the set of his shoulders, he said, “Ethel.” 

“She hasn’t given me the time of day since she took up with that officer,” Griff said warily. 

“And what did she give you before that?” Thomas asked. 

Griff looked back and forth between them. “Nothing much. Why, what’d she say?”

“She says she’s up the spout,” Thomas informed him. 

“It weren’t me,” he said quickly. 

“Are you sure?” Thomas asked, mock-kindly. “Think very carefully. Is there anything that might have slipped your mind?”

“Look,” Griff said. “If it was me, I’d do the decent thing. It’s not like she’s a tart or nothing. But it weren’t me.” 

Looking over at Bates, Thomas sighed theatrically. “He says it wasn’t him.” 

Looking at him with just a hint of panic, Griff said, “Sarge, there is no chance. If she says different, she’s lying. I swear.” 

Thomas was inclined to believe him, but infused his tone with skepticism as he said, “No chance like you _didn’t_ , or no chance like you sold her some line about it not happening if you did it standing up, or summat?”

“No chance, like the most she ever let me do was touch her tits. Honest. Unless you can get a girl up the duff from that, it’s got to be some other bloke. You can put me on report for what I did do, if you like, but I won’t be blamed for what I didn’t. I’ll swear it on the Bible if you like.”

Thomas sighed, genuinely this time. “Fine,” he said grudgingly. 

“You believe me?” Griff sounded surprised about it.

“Why, were you lying?”

“No,” he said. “But I thought I was going to have to take a beating before you’d believe me.”

“That was the idea,” Thomas told him. “Go, keep your hands to yourself, and if I find out from Anna that you said anything other than that she was pretty, we’ll beat you up twice.” 

“Fair enough,” Griff said, and fled. 

“Well,” Bates said, once he had gone. “That’s that.”

“Yeah,” Thomas agreed, lighting a cigarette. “It was a long shot.” He added, “You’re pretty good at that. Have to remember that.”

“You didn’t seem very impressed the time I tried to put the frighteners on you,” Bates said.

Thomas had forgotten about that. It had been something to do with Anna, hadn’t it? “I don’t frighten easily,” he said. 

“No,” Bates said. “I don’t suppose you do.” Sitting down across from Thomas, he said, “You’re not bad at that, yourself. Done it before, have you?”

“Well,” Thomas said, blowing smoke. “Not _exactly_ that. But the circles I run in—ran in—sometimes a bloke needs to be reminded of his manners.” He studied the burning end of his cigarette. “Reckon that’s what they kept me around for, my old crowd.” 

“The ones who are all dead,” Bates said.

So Anna had ratted him out. Judas. “Yes.” Thomas stood up, putting out his cigarette, half-smoked. “I’d better check the main hall, then be getting to bed. Morning’ll be here before we know it.”

#

“Private Griffiths admitted to…certain indiscretions, but not anything that would account for Ethel’s current situation,” Thomas told Anna and Mrs. Hughes. They were in the latter’s sitting room, which Anna supposed was why he phrased it so delicately. “He was rather convincing, so we’re no further along, I’m afraid.”

Mrs. Hughes nodded. “And I take it Major Bryant was not receptive?”

“No,” Thomas said flatly. 

“I didn’t think he would be,” Mrs. Hughes said. “Well, I suppose you’ve duties to attend to.”

“I do,” Thomas agreed, and left.

Anna’s duty, at the moment, was to wait for Lady Mary or Lady Edith to ring, which she could do just as well in here at in the servants’ hall. She lingered, and Mrs. Hughes didn’t chase her out. To the contrary, she waved Anna into one of the chairs in front of her fire and said, “I’m surprised to see Thomas taking this so to heart.”

Anna knew of two reasons why he would. To speak of one would be betraying a confidence, but the other, she had pieced together from various stray remarks. She was, she thought, free to speak of it—except that it was a difficult subject to introduce. “He’s been missing his friends,” she said, which was the simplest and least objectionable part of it.

“His war chums?” Mrs. Hughes asked.

“No,” Anna said. “His and Mr. Fitzroy’s friends. Most of them have been killed, apparently.” Thomas had said _all_ , but given it was Thomas, that might’ve been an exaggeration.

Mrs. Hughes said, “I see,” but she still looked puzzled. 

Anna attempted to explain. “I gather it…wasn’t unusual, for them to have dealings with…gentlemen who behaved in an ungentlemanly manner.” Mr. Bates had told her what they’d discussed the evening before, and she remembered him sounding almost _defensive_ as he explained why he wasn’t going to give Major Bryant a thrashing. Further back, she remembered him earnestly offering to give _Mr. Bates_ a thrashing, if he laid a hand on her. “Apparently, he was sort of…responsible for giving short, sharp lessons in manners.” 

Mrs. Hughes raised her eyebrows. Anna had to admit, it was a little hard to imagine—suave, not-a-hair-out-of-place Thomas as bullyboy. But Mr. Bates had said it was…less difficult to imagine, after seeing him talking to Griff like a street tough. “I’m not sure he should be telling you about _that_ ,” Mrs. Hughes noted.

“He hasn’t described any details,” Anna said. “And part of it he said to Mr. Bates.” Lest Mrs. Hughes dwell on Thomas telling her inappropriate things, Anna hurried on, “Anyway, what I meant was that, since they’re all gone, he’s trying to be…friendlier, to the rest of us.” _Everyone I knew before the war is dead_ , he’d said. That wasn’t true—all of them at Downton were still alive. But he hadn’t meant them. “Only he has some strange ideas about what that means.” She would not, Anna decided, tell Mrs. Hughes that Thomas had thought that Major Bryant ought to _pay Ethel off_. 

Even without her saying that, Mrs. Hughes looked sad. “Sometimes I wonder,” she said, “if we’re as much of a mystery to him, as he is to us.” 

There were, Anna had to admit, bizarre and startling gaps in Thomas’s knowledge of how normal people operated, but she wasn’t sure _mystery_ was the word for it. “When Ethel—when she was first dismissed, he seemed to take entirely for granted that we’d do something to help her. Even though—he made a point of this—he doesn’t like her.”

Frowning, Mrs. Hughes said, “He said something like that, the night he shouted all those horrible things at Mr. Carson. He said that at the Front, they had to look out for the next man, whether they liked one another or not.”

There was something, Anna thought, that she _almost_ understood. Like having a word at the tip of one’s tongue. _He looked out for us_ , Thomas had said, of his friend, what was his name? The one who had been a butler. Ted? No, Theo. _They made him a Sergeant_. _Bet he was good at it._ And something about not knowing how to find a job without Theo. “Yes,” she said. “I think it must have been like that before the war, too. With his friends. They all…being like they are, and always in danger because of it, they had to rely on each other.” 

That would explain his surprising success in the Army, if they operated in a way that he understood. If you didn’t have to be _liked_ to be _looked out for_. They _had_ liked him, his war chums—he’d said so, in so many words, and his men here liked him, too. But what if that came after?

What if, as far as Thomas was concerned, you had to know you could trust someone—had to know they’d look out for you—before there was any question of liking them? 

He’d kept them all at arm’s length, she remembered, until she’d told him that they knew, about how he was. To protect his secret, certainly, but perhaps that wasn’t all of it. Perhaps he’d been waiting for them to _prove they could be trusted_ , before he’d let them get any closer than arm’s length. 

Perhaps, while they’d been thinking him cold and unfeeling, he’d been thinking almost the same of them. 

#

“—the new men don’t arrive until Tuesday, so we’ll be short-handed again, but only for a few days,” Major Clarkson was saying. It was the weekly meeting between Thomas, Sister Crawley, and the Major, and Major Clarkson had opened it by explaining the latest personnel transfers. The last of the eleven men they were losing would depart on Sunday. “And Sergeant, you’ll be pleased to hear that Corporal Rawlins is among them.”

With everything else that had been happening, Thomas hadn’t had much attention to spare for worrying about something that was as thoroughly out of his hands as Rawlins’s Home Service assignment was, but it was a tremendous relief to hear it was settled. “Thank you, sir. I’m sure he won’t disappoint.”

The usual wrangle over the duty roster ensued, but—somewhat to Thomas’s surprised—Sister Crawley agreed readily enough to let him have Rawlins up at the convalescent home, to start. She wanted Corporal Wiggins in exchange, of course, and he had to take the rest of the new arrivals as well, but she’d have asked for the same things even if Rawlins _wasn’t_ in the picture. 

The return of Captain Crawley had also meant the return of Sister Crawley’s enthusiasm for her various projects, and she brought them up to date—at considerable length—about the progress she’d made on organizing the blood grouping drive. Lady Edith had agreed not only to be tested, at a time which would make her participation highly visible, but also to persuade the convalescent home patients to take part, and to organize getting them down to the village. Colonel Grantham and Lady Mary had also agreed to make an appearance, though they had not promised to actually submit to the needle. Sister Crawley was convinced she’d be able to talk them into it when the time came. Apart from that, she’d recruited the vicar and his wife, along with a handful of other middle-class notables, so with the Downton servants—and Sister Crawley’s servants—they were sure of all classes being represented. “No one will be able to think that it isn’t suitable for their sort of person to be a donor,” she explained. 

She’d accomplished less, but had even more to say, about the plight of crippled ex-soldiers, living rough. Major Clarkson made a few attempts to rein her in on the subject, pointing out that they were no longer in need of _medical_ care, and in any case their facilities were designated for officers, but she was undeterred. “Some of them, I’m certain, would be more able to work if they had more rehabilitative care,” she said. “And others are capable of working, but need only to be given a chance.” She had a number of castle-in-the-air plans about a rehabilitation clinic—perhaps in the parish hall—and employment bureau, but also had gotten started on a scheme for providing free, hot meals. “Mrs. Bird has been saying that she wants more to do, so she’ll do the cooking, and I’ll raise funds to buy what’s needed. We’ll start with once a week, but with the support of the community, we’ll be able to expand.” She went on to outline plans for a collection of warm clothing. “And I must find out where they’re living,” she added. “I gather most of them have some sort of roof over their heads, but they’ve been cagy about precisely where. They may be staying somewhere without the property owner’s knowledge.”

Major Clarkson broke in. “That all sounds very suitable, Sister, but perhaps we could put it to one side, and talk about which patients will be transferred to the convalescent home?”

Major Bryant was far from being the only officer with an upcoming medical panel; the concert had been, in part, a farewell party for a group of them who’d be leaving in the coming week. They hashed out how many of the vacated beds would be needed for patients moving up from their own hospital, and how many could be reported to the War Office as available for transfers from other nearby facilities. 

By the time the meeting wound up, Thomas was going to be late for the patients’ tea, but he nevertheless lingered to speak to Sister Crawley. He opened by asking after Captain Crawley, who was, she said, well. “And how is William? Matthew says they had quite an ordeal.”

“He’s gone to his dad’s, ma’am, but he seemed well enough while he was here.” Thomas had, in fact, avoided him a bit. William had managed to turn some of his experiences into thrilling tales suitable for telling in the servants’ hall, but surely he’d been disillusioned by now about the glories of war—unless he really was that thick. Thomas had decided he didn’t want to find out. To forestall any further questions about William, he went on, “I’m glad you’ve thought up some ideas, for those crippled men. It may not be hospital business, but it really is a disgrace, like you said.” 

She nodded. “I gather the War Office expects their families to look after them, but some of them have no families—and others don’t want to burden them.”

 _Speaking of families, and burdens_ …no, he’d best butter her up a bit more before broaching the subject of Ethel. “I’m sure they’ll be grateful for anything you can do, ma’am. I don’t mind admitting, when I found out how much use of my arm I’d lost, I was a bit worried about what would become of me.” There was a bit of a lie in that, but it was only that he _did_ , in fact, mind admitting it. 

She looked at his shoulder. “You know, you manage so well, I’d nearly forgotten. Does it give you much pain, still?”

“A bit, now the weather’s turned cold. Can’t complain, though.” Well, he _could_ , but it wouldn’t do any good. And he really did need to get back up to the house. Looking to one side, he said, “There’s something else I wanted to ask you about. Bit delicate.”

With a look of mingled concern and avid interest, Sister Crawley drew him into the surgical prep room, where they could talk more privately. 

“You remember Major Bryant,” Thomas said. “The difficulties we’ve had with him.” 

Her face took on an expression of distaste. “I do. He is on the list to leave shortly, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” Thomas said. “The thing is once the nurses stopped getting within arm’s reach of him, he turned his attention to one of the housemaids.” 

“Oh, dear.” 

“She’s in trouble,” Thomas said flatly. “She was dismissed, a bit ago, because they were caught red-handed, but…well, I suppose she doesn’t have any family she can turn to, either. She came to the house a few days ago, because she didn’t know where else to go.” 

“Have you spoken to Major Bryant?” she asked. 

“I have. And she’s written to him, several times. He denies responsibility.” 

She pursed her lips. “When you say they were _caught_ ….”

“There’s very little room for doubt.”

“I see,” she said. “Well, then. He _must_ be made to do the decent thing.”

Thomas had, in fact, been wondering if Sister Crawley might have ideas of a _medical_ nature, to eliminate the problem at its source, so to speak, but he saw no way to clarify that. “Mrs. Hughes and Anna seemed convinced it was impossible, ma’am. Him being a gentleman and all.” 

“That’s all the more reason he cannot be allowed to shirk his responsibility.” She drew herself up. “I’ll speak to him.”

Well, if anyone could make a dent in Major Bryant’s indifference, it was the steamroller, Thomas thought. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, and reminded her of the date of Bryant’s medical panel.

Returning to the house, he found, unsurprisingly, a shambles. Ambulatory officers were wandering around vaguely in search of tea, while the new orderlies carried it, one tray at a time, to the bed-bound. Thomas got them straightened out—you took everything up to the hall _first_ , so the ambulatories could help themselves, and served the bed-cases from there—and put Ethel out of his mind.

Sister Crawley was as good as her word, though, and a day or two later, she arrived with Major Clarkson for his afternoon round, and when they reached the recreation room, separated herself from the group and made a bee-line for the errant Major. 

Thomas finished the round with Major Clarkson and repaired to his office, where he found Sister Crawley in possession, and Major Bryant lolling indolently in one of Thomas’s armchairs. “—very sorry, Sister,” he was saying insincerely, “but the girl is no better than she should be. I have no way of knowing that the child—if it even exists—is mine.”

“You were _seen_ ,” Sister Crawley said sharply. 

“I admit, I gave way to temptation. But the girl—Ethel, is it?—was on, shall we say, _friendly_ terms with any number of the other officers.” Smirking, he got to his feet. “Now, if that’s all….?”

“No, that is not all,” Sister Crawley said.

But Bryant was already halfway to the door. “Sergeant,” he said, with a crisp nod.

Thomas shut the door behind him. “No joy, I take it?”

“No,” she said. “I don’t know how he can call himself a gentleman.” Her righteous indignation faltered for a second, and she asked, “I don’t suppose it’s true, is it? That there are…other candidates?”

“Don’t think so, ma’am,” Thomas said. “She’d flirt with anything in trousers, but it doesn’t seem to have gone much further than that with anyone else.” 

Sister Crawley sighed. “If he won’t take responsibility, the only thing to do is get her through the pregnancy and have the child adopted—that way, she can put this behind her, and the child will have a decent upbringing. There are places, for unwed mothers, where they take care of the details. I’ll make some enquiries.” 

Somehow, Thomas doubted that Ethel would like the sound of that, but he didn’t have any better ideas. “Yes, ma’am.”

Later that evening, he reported her lack of success to Anna, who reported in turn that Bates had had better luck with engaging a private detective. “He’d charge a great deal if he had to keep watch for them at the hotel, but he’ll come on the day they’re expected, and if they turn up at a different time, Mr. Bates’s friend can telephone him, and he’ll come and photograph them leaving.”

“Good,” Thomas said, wondering, again, why she was telling him, if they had everything well in hand. 

Anna looked at him for a moment, her expression thoughtful. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Perhaps you’d rather not hear about it. I don’t mean to rub it in.”

“What?” Thomas asked, puzzled.

“That…well, that we’re going to be happy,” she said. 

Oh. That. “It’s fine.” Honestly, what was the world coming to if you couldn’t weep hysterically _one time_ without people thinking you could go off at any second?

He’d be glad when Rawlins came. _He_ could deal with all of the feelings shit, and Thomas could go back to being a cranky bastard.

#

Facing the long, curving road up the hill, Rawlins bent and surreptitiously adjusted the fastenings of his prosthetic foot. He’d reported in at the village hospital—still surprised, in the back of his mind, not to find it set up in a half-bombed-out church or school, despite being several months back in England—where the Ward-Sister, a civilian nurse, had explained that he wasn’t on the duty roster until the next day, with trains being so unreliable, and so he had the rest of the day to get settled in his billet and have a look around the village. 

His billet had proved to be a pleasant cottage—also free of shell damage—where the householder, a cheerful older woman, had shown him to the room he’d share with the hospital’s other Corporal. It had been her sons’ room, she explained, her cheer dimming for a moment.

Rawlins hadn’t asked. The moment had passed, and she’d given him a hearty lunch—not usually included, she’d said, the “hospital men” had it at the hospital, or else at “the big house,” but you couldn’t get a decent meal on a train, could you? Especially not these days. 

Once he’d polished it off, she’d told him how to get to the big house—“up the hill and you can’t miss it”—and he’d set out. 

His hostess hadn’t lied. When he rounded the curve of the wide, well-graveled lane, the house came into view—high-spired, golden in the winter sunlight, and absolutely enormous. Rawlins was glad he had an in with the Wardmaster; the whole thing would be awfully intimidating, otherwise. 

He wondered what Barrow would be like, here in his usual setting. It was a bit like going to one of your friends’ places for the school holidays, wasn’t it? You saw a different side of them. Sometimes one you’d rather not have seen—Rawlins remembered going once to the home of a chap he’d rather admired, cricket captain and all that, only to find that, at home, he permitted his mother to cut his meat for him and call him “Popsy.” It was pretty difficult to look at a chap the same way, after you’d seen a thing like that. 

But it wasn’t Barrow’s home, only the place where he worked, so there couldn’t be anything _nearly_ that embarrassing to discover. 

Up close, the house loomed even larger, and Rawlins looked at the double front door with some apprehension. If you rang the bell, did the fearsome Carson come and open it? Not wanting to risk it, Rawlins followed a well-trodden path that curved around the side of the house. 

It led to a courtyard, which reminded Rawlins somewhat of the ambulance-yard back at the 47th—except that there was no one in it, except for a girl in an apron and striped dress, taking a leg of mutton out of a sort of cupboard built into the brick. 

The girl was tiny, and seeing her try to pick up a second leg of mutton, while balancing the tub that held the first with her other hand, Rawlins hurried forward. “Can I give you a hand with that?”

She looked over her shoulder at him. “Please,” she said. “Take the tray, before I drop summat!”

Rawlins took it, and she grasped the mutton more securely, with both hands. “All right, there?”

She nodded. “I should have made two trips, but I didn’t want to.” She put the second leg of mutton into the tray he held, and wiped her hands on her apron. “You’re one of the new orderlies, then?”

“I am,” he said. “Corporal Rawlins, at your service.” 

She opened the door, and held it while he went through. “To your right,” she said. 

Rawlins turned to his right, explaining as he went, “I’m not actually on duty until tomorrow—they weren’t sure when I’d get here—but I thought I’d give my compliments to the Wardmaster.”

They went into the kitchen—as large as Rawlins’s mother’s dining room and salon combined—and the girl directed him to put the tub on a vast butcher-block table. A round, red-faced woman in an apron and cap turned from the stove and said, “Are you bringing in strays, now, Daisy?”

“No, Mrs. Patmore,” she said. “He’s one of the new orderlies. Corporal Rawlins.”

“Nice to meet you, ma’am,” Rawlins said. She was the one Barrow said cooked almost as well as Granny, then, and who’d been responsible for the fruitcake they’d had that Christmas as the CCS. 

Mrs. Patmore snorted. “Charmed, I’m sure.”

“He’s looking for Thomas,” the Daisy-girl reported. “D’you know where he is?”

“I’ve better things to do than keep track of Thomas,” Mrs. Patmore answered. “Anna might know.”

“I’ll show you where to find her,” Daisy said, and led Rawlins back the way they came, past the door, and into a plain-looking dining room. There was an older man at the table, and several women. Daisy said to one of them, a thin-faced blonde, “Anna, this is Corporal Rawlins. He’s looking for Thomas.”

Anna looked up at him. “He’ll be doing the rounds with Dr. Clarkson,” she said. “You might as well have a cup of tea before he puts you to work.”

#

Afternoon rounds took longer than usual, since each of the men was managing more patients than he ought to be, and half of them didn’t know what Major Clarkson was likely to ask for, resulting in a lot of scrambling to un-dress wounds, take temperatures and pulses, and so on. When it was finally over, Thomas thought longingly of his office, and a cup of tea and a cigarette, but he knew that once he’d sat down, he wasn’t going to want to get up again. Best to go downstairs first, to check that things weren’t piling up too high in the sinkroom and that preparations for the patients’ tea—the next hurdle coming up—were in hand. 

Nearing the bottom of the stairs, he heard animated voices from the servants’ hall. For a moment Thomas wondered if William was still loitering around, but no, they’d seen him off the day before, with great fanfare, and not even Captain Crawley was jammy enough to have gotten a second stretch of home leave right on the heels of the last one. 

Besides, the voice that was saying, “No, we were sitting on the siding for _hours_ ,” didn’t sound like William. It sounded almost like….

Thomas hurried down the last few steps, his tiredness forgotten. It was. Standing in the doorway to the servants’ hall, he barked, “Corporal Rawlins!”

Rawlins jumped to his feet and braced up—Thomas had told him about that, in a letter. “Wardmaster,” he said formally.

“Nobody calls me that,” Thomas said, thumping him on the shoulder. “What’re you doing here already? You’re not on roster until tomorrow.”

Rawlins thumped him back. “Dunno, I heard a mate of mine worked here.”

“Yeah? Who’s that?”

Rawlins laughed, and thumped him again. “Nice to see you haven’t changed.”

Thomas eyed him. He looked all right—fit enough, and he’d stood easily. “How’s the peg-leg? You all right on stairs?”

“Yeah,” Rawlins said, nodding. “As long as I don’t rush it. And it helps if I can see my feet.”

“Good,” Thomas said. “Lot of stairs in this house. Come on, I’ve got to check a thing or two down here, and then I’ll show you my office.”

#

As the two men left the servants’ hall, Anna heard the new Corporal—Rawlins, apparently—say, “So do I get to drink in the Wardmaster’s office now?”

“We’ll see,” Thomas replied, mock sternly. 

Rawlins laughed and made some reply Anna couldn’t make out, and in a few moments, their voices had disappeared up the stairs. 

In the servants’ hall, they looked around at one another, everyone else looking as puzzled as Anna felt. “It…seems they know each other,” Mr. Bates said, into the ensuing silence.

Miss O’Brien, at the far end of the table, spoke up. “Now I wonder,” she said, her voice honey-sweet, “why our Sergeant Barrow didn’t mention a _friend_ of his was coming?”

Anna couldn’t help wondering the same.


	28. Chapter 23: November, 1917-April 1918

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mrs. Crawley takes an interest in Ethel's situation. Rawlins learns something surprising about Thomas. Matthew and William come home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Note: In this chapter, Thomas expresses some problematic views about adoption. These are a product of his issues, and not reflective of either reality or the author’s views on the subject. 
> 
> Timeline note: The latter part of this chapter corresponds to episode 2X05. I've adjusted the timing slightly from what is implied in that episode, so that the duration of Ethel's pregnancy is something plausible for a human woman, rather than an elephant.

Rawlins hung about the rest of the day, mucking in with the dressing changes and everything, and in between chores Thomas filled him in on the operations of the house. “It’s lighter work than the hospital, really,” Thomas admitted. “But what that means is what whenever we’re shorthanded—which is always, lately—we’ve got to take the brunt of it.” He explained the night-duty arrangements, adding, “The last few nights, I’ve been on-call, with one of the new men on duty. I’m lucky if I have time to fall asleep before he wakes me up again wanting to know if so-and-so can have an extra morphine tablet, or if 98.7 is a fever, or how to find his arse with both hands and a map.”

“Typical,” Rawlins said, with a chuckle.

“Yeah, keep laughing. Griff’s got it from tomorrow night—the Cyclops—and then you’re next, Saturday to Monday.” 

“Oof,” Rawlins said. “I just _got_ here.”

“That’s why I didn’t stick you with it tomorrow,” Thomas informed him.

Rawlins slumped into one of the armchairs. “Not a lot of advantage in being the Wardmaster’s best mate, is there?”

“Nope,” said Thomas. “Remember Corporal Jessop?”

Rawlins thought for a moment. “Oh, fuck. I’m in for it, aren’t I?”

“Well, you don’t have to take the new men on their first visit to the front line,” Thomas said, making a mental note to give Rawlins the “language” lecture later. “So that’s something.”

“Too right,” Rawlins said. He propped his artificial foot up on the opposite knee, making some adjustment to the straps that held it on. Thomas supposed it gave him more trouble than he cared to admit—much as Thomas didn’t care to discuss his shoulder. “Can’t complain about anything, really, this far to the rear.” 

“Well, we _can_ ,” Thomas pointed out. “Doesn’t change anything, is all.” 

There was too much to do to make time for that drink Rawlins had asked about, but when the day shift were setting up the hall for tomorrow’s breakfast and handing over their cases to the night man—the last tasks before they finished for the day—Thomas suggested Rawlins stay to dinner. “There’s a few more things to go over, and then we can have that drink, if you like.” 

Rawlins agreed readily. It had happened before that one of the orderlies worked late and had his dinner in the servants’ hall, so Thomas didn’t expect Rawlins’s presence to be at all remarkable—but he had not reckoned for certain people’s insatiable appetite for anything to do with his personal life. No sooner had they sat down than Mrs. Hughes said, “Corporal, am I right in thinking that you know Sergeant Barrow from the war?”

“Yes,” Rawlins said. “From the 47th. We were in the same billet.”

“Ah,” Bates said. “The infamous barn?”

So Rawlins told them all about the barn, and they lapped it up as though Thomas hadn’t even written them about it. Perhaps they’d not believed him. When Rawlins had finished describing it—with detours into the cat and the personalities of their other billet-mates, Mrs. Hughes said, “Well, I hope your billet here is more satisfactory.”

“It is. They put me up with a Mr. and Mrs. Entwistle. I haven’t met him yet, or the chap I’ll be rooming with, but the landlady’s gave me a nice lunch when I stopped in to leave my kit.” 

“You’re in with Wiggins, then,” Thomas said. He’d mentioned Mrs. Entwistle’s cooking before. “You’ll get on all right with him.”

“Good,” said Rawlins. “Are their sons…?”

Thomas had no idea, but Mrs. Hughes said, “The elder one was killed, I’m afraid. The younger was in Italy, the last I’d heard.” 

They went on to pepper Rawlins with so many questions—a few about his recent circumstances, but mostly about his time in France—Thomas found he had to answer a few of them himself, just to give Rawlins time to eat a bite or two. 

Mercifully, Rawlins did not volunteer the Hand Story, but he did talk about what had happened when Thomas first got his Corporal’s stripes. “So he’d been our Corporal about ten minutes—we were still figuring out where we were going to go to get him drunk—and he tells us we’re getting up early the next day for uniform inspections and drill. We all just about sh—I mean, you could’ve knocked us over with a feather.”

“I told you why,” Thomas pointed out, suspecting that the others would not find this story as hilarious as Rawlins did. Bates was already giving him an exasperated look. 

“You did,” Rawlins acknowledged, and continued. “So we got up the next day, so hung over we could barely stand up, and there we were, doing drill.”

Thomas thought it had been the next day when they’d gone out drinking, but didn’t argue the point. “I was no better off than the rest of you, and I had to _run_ drill,” he said. 

“Yes, and we all thought he’d gone off his rocker,” Rawlins continued. 

The rest of them looked like they thought that, too, but at least Thomas knew how this story ended. “I believe _mad with power_ was the phrase,” he interjected dryly. 

“We did think that,” Rawlins admitted to the others. He went on to explain how Thomas had run them ragged over the next few days—“and we still had our regular duties, don’t forget”—until they reported to their new posting at the Casualty Clearing Station, only to find that they were being inspected immediately. “Besides us, the platoon was one other section from an advanced unit, and two straight from training camp. So of course the new men were all spit and polish, but the other section was basically a shambles, and the CO tore them a new—tore them up. We didn’t come off too badly, though, and when we’re going back inside, somebody says how it turned out lucky that Barrow was riding us like he did the last few days, and then _Barrow_ says—” 

Here, Rawlins turned to Thomas, and he dutifully filled in, “That was why we were doing it in the first place. _Luck_ had nothing to do with it.” Carson, Thomas noticed, gave him a startled sort of appraising look. 

“Right,” Rawlins said, turning back to the rest of them. “Turns out the Wardmaster’d tipped him off the CO where we were going was a stickler for that sort of thing.”

“I _told_ you,” Thomas said again, for the benefit of the listeners. “It wasn’t a secret.”

“He did,” he Rawlins confirmed. “But you know what he’s like—he just sort of slipped it in between two other things, and we weren’t really paying attention.”

Thomas didn’t think they _did_ know that, about him, but Anna nodded thoughtfully. 

“You should’ve been,” Thomas said. 

“Ten minutes, you were our Corporal,” Rawlins reminded him. “We hadn’t worked out yet we were supposed to hang on your every word.” 

“I hadn’t worked out yet I had to club you lot over the head first if I was going to say anything important,” Thomas retorted. 

#

“There, now, you see?” Mrs. Hughes said, when she and Mr. Carson retired to his pantry for an after-dinner sherry. “He’s a war chum, and he’s staying in the village. Nothing to worry about.” At tea that afternoon, Miss O’Brien had asked, with a butter-wouldn’t-melt expression, whether Mr. Carson thought it quite suitable for Thomas to bring his “friend” to the house. Mr. Carson had wanted to call Thomas in for an immediate interrogation on the subject, but Mrs. Hughes had managed to convince him to let her ask the questions, under the guise of ordinary conversation. 

“I’m not sure I’d go _that_ far,” Mr. Carson said darkly. 

She waited to hear if he had some specific objection—she worried that it might eventually dawn on him that Corporal Rawlins being a war chum did not necessarily preclude him also being one of Thomas’s sort—but none came. “Well I, for one, am glad Thomas has someone to help him supervise the other men,” she said, to shift the subject. “They’ve been running him ragged.” Especially this business where he had to sleep in his office, in case the man on night duty ran into a situation he couldn’t handle. It was, he said, only a few nights at a time, but she could always tell which ones it was, from the way he came to breakfast looking as though he hadn’t slept at all.

“It seems everyone is short-handed now,” Mr. Carson said. “Have there been any more applicants for Ethel’s replacement?”

“None satisfactory,” Mrs. Hughes answered. While she was, in fact, more worried about what would become of the girl and her unborn child than about the problem of filling her job, she allowed herself to be drawn into commiserating on the difficulty of finding staff these days.

#

“So,” Mr. Bates said, when he and Anna were waiting, at the servants’ hall table, for his lordship and the ladies to ring for them. “Thomas has a friend.” 

“I suppose so,” Anna said—at least, Corporal Rawlins had claimed to be, but Anna wouldn’t have guessed it from the way they spoke to each other. “They seem to quarrel a lot.”

Miss O’Brien, who was likewise waiting for her ladyship to ring, said, “Like an old married couple, if you ask me.”

“No one did,” Mr. Bates pointed out. To Anna, he continued, “That’s normal, though, with Army chums. You don’t get sentimental about it. Not unless you’ve been drinking. Sometimes you’ll see two chaps insulting each other, and you can’t tell whether they’re best mates or somebody’s about to be punched in the face.” He thought for a moment. “Or sometimes they’re best mates and _still_ punch one another in the face.”

Men, Anna thought, were sometimes very strange. Still, this insight served her well when, a day or two later, she happened to overhear Corporal Rawlins telling some of the other orderlies a gruesome story involving a severed hand, and concluding it with, “And that’s why we called him the Magnificent Bastard.”

Between Mr. Bates’s explanation and the orderlies’ reactions, Anna grasped that this was, despite appearances, a high compliment, but she couldn’t help wondering how Thomas felt about it—particularly given that, as he’d told her once, he actually _was_. 

Thomas did seem a bit less frazzled, now that Corporal Rawlins had arrived. From what Anna had seen of Thomas at work, he seemed to spend a lot of time rushing from place to place, checking on this or overseeing that, and it had only gotten worse when so many of the orderlies left, and were replaced by new ones that Thomas claimed needed watching every second. Corporal Rawlins, apparently, could be trusted to shoulder some of that load, giving Thomas some room to breathe.

The other orderlies spent most of their time upstairs, either about their duties or in the room set aside for them, but Rawlins quickly became as much of a presence downstairs as Thomas himself was. Even though he didn’t live there, he always seemed to be around. He made frequent appearances in the servants’ hall for breakfast and dinner—a circumstance that Thomas explained by saying he was on night duty, or they had NCO business to discuss, despite the fact that no one was asking.

Almost no one, at any rate. The rest of them ignored Miss O’Brien’s sly remarks—mostly made out of Thomas’s hearing—but there was no denying that what she was hinting at, had crossed all of their minds at one time or another. 

Because with Corporal Rawlins around, Thomas was almost…happy. He told jokes, and allowed himself to be teased, and engaged in what was—for Thomas—a startling amount of affectionate roughhousing. They could barely be within arm’s reach of each other for two minutes before they were punching each other in the arm, or knocking their shoulders together, or—on a couple of occasions—actually play-wrestling. 

Anna had seen enough hall-boys and footmen pass through the house to know that it was the sort of thing that boys did—but not Thomas. He was the cat that walked by himself, and nobody ever touched him. Except for Mr. Fitzroy, who’d been very, very circumspect about it, and now Corporal Rawlins, who at times put Anna in mind of an exuberant puppy.

Apart from that difference, though, she did notice a certain similarity to Mr. Fitzroy. Not in their looks, so much, but in their easy manner with other people, and the way they drew Thomas out of himself. Anna wasn’t sure if he was a _particular_ friend, in the sense that Mr. Fitzroy had been, but he seemed to be good for Thomas, in some of the same ways.

So while Anna would never have asked the question aloud, she would admit, privately, to a certain curiosity. She tried giving him opportunities to talk about Corporal Rawlins, if he wanted, but his response to her first effort—asking why he hadn’t mentioned his friend was coming—was “Had it sorted, didn’t I?”

He didn’t, she recalled, entirely understand that people sometimes told things to one another without expecting to get something out of it. 

She also tried asking how he and Corporal Rawlins had become friends, but Corporal Rawlins had shown up just then, eliminating any chance of a serious answer. After a brief shoving match for space on the crate they both insisted on sitting on to smoke—even though there were several others available—Thomas had said, “How’d we get to be mates, you wanted to know? Not sure, really. He just sort of hung about. Like a stray dog.”

“Oi,” Corporal Rawlins said, and shoved him. 

One evening, when Corporal Rawlins came down early to dinner—ahead of Thomas, that was—and there weren’t too many others in the servants’ hall, she saw an opportunity to get him talking. Sitting next to him, she said, “Are you settling in well, then?”

“Oh, sure,” he said. “Bit of a change from France, but I don’t mind getting used to the quiet again.”

“Do you miss it?” she asked. “I think Thomas—Sergeant Barrow—did.”

“Yeah, he actually sort of liked it over there, I think. Mad bugger,” he said fondly. “I miss our mates, of course, but most of them are gone by now anyway—transfers, I mean, some of them.” He took out his cigarettes. “Do you mind if I—?” At her nod, he lit one, and continued, “I miss the old days, I suppose. Before first July.” 

First July, Anna knew, meant that date in 1916—what had become known as the first day of the Battle of the Somme. The day Thomas had been shot, among other things. She was wondering whether to ask about that—Thomas _still_ hadn’t told them much, about the day he’d been wounded—when Rawlins continued.

“But I suppose when those old days were happening, I missed the old days before Lamb was killed.”

“Lamb?” Anna asked.

“Yeah, Lamble,” Corporal Rawlins said, as if she ought to know who that was. “The bloke from our billet who was killed our first summer over there?”

“I don’t think he mentioned it,” Anna said uncertainly. 

“He must’ve,” Corporal Rawlins said. “It was when he got put up to lance-corporal.” He looked at her searchingly. “The thing with Diggs?”

Anna frowned. “He said he was made lance-corporal over…something to do with linen? I’m not sure of the details.” Had Thomas _made that up?_

But Corporal Rawlins said, “Oh, right—that was the first time. I’d forgot about that one. That was only for a couple of weeks, but the next time he got put up, it stuck. That was, ah…it’s not a very nice story, actually,” he said apologetically.

“I don’t suppose it would be, if it’s about somebody being killed,” she pointed out. 

“True.” He thought for a moment. “Lamb was the first one of us to die. From our billet, our section, the bunch of us that went over in the first half of ’15—however you want to figure it. None of us actually liked him very much—Barrow’d be the first to tell you that—but he was one of us, so it shook us up.” 

“Naturally,” Anna said. Only Thomas hadn’t breathed a word about it. 

“It was a pretty bad night—nothing compared to the next summer, but worse than anything we’d seen yet. We were on bearer duty—bringing the wounded back from the Front. I was in an ambulance, which wasn’t too bad, but a few of us—Barrow, Lamb, some of the others—had to carry them back through the trenches to the road. Since they were the new lads, they were paired up with our Corporals. Regular Army blokes, mostly, at that time. They were supposed to look out for them.” 

There were those words again— _look out for them_. “But they didn’t?” she asked.

“Most of them did. Barrow had Jessop, real steady chap. Lamb had Corporal Diggs, who was….”

“Not?” Anna suggested. It might be a little unworthy of her, but she was glad Thomas had had someone looking out for him. 

“Not,” Rawlins agreed, with a grateful air. “He was a friendly sort, I mean, nobody disliked him much before that night—Barrow might’ve, because it was Diggs who stuck him with the linen job, and Barrow doesn’t care much whether anyone’s friendly or not. But anyway, they were carrying stretchers back and forth, and somehow—nobody saw this part, so nobody knows how—Lamb ended up out in no-man’s land, fetching a casualty, with one of the casualty’s friends. While Diggs sat on his arse, pardon my language.”

Mr. Bates joined them then, and Anna explained, in a murmur, what Corporal Rawlins was telling her about. Once he’d been brought up to date, Rawlins continued, “The new lads weren’t even supposed to go up over the parapet, let alone on their own. That’s the hardest bit, getting them back to the trench from no-man’s land, and none of us had done it yet. They weren’t going to make us do it the first time on a night like that.” 

“So this Diggs, he didn’t stop him from going?” Anna asked.

“Worse than that,” Rawlins said grimly. “They were shelled. Shrapnel shell, I think. The casualty and the other infantryman were killed instantly, but Lamb was still alive. And Corporal Diggs wouldn’t go out after him.”

Mr. Bates swore under his breath. 

“So Corporal Jessop got wind of it somehow, and went up there to try to talk some sense into him. He refused, even after Jessop told him it was cowardice in the face of the enemy. So Barrow went with him instead.” 

“You mean….” Anna said uncertainly. 

“Over the top,” Rawlins confirmed. “Barrow’s good, in no-man’s-land, but nobody knew that yet. _He_ didn’t even know it.” 

Anna wondered how much time Thomas had spent in no-man’s-land, but before she could ask, Corporal Rawlins continued, “They got Lamb back in, but he died later that night. By the next day, Diggs was in the—he was in disgrace, and Barrow was a lance-corporal. Diggs ended up losing his stripes and getting F.P., but Jessop told me later—this was after Barrow was gone, when I got put up to Corporal—that if Barrow hadn’t stepped up, they’d probably have had to shoot Diggs, _pour encourager les autres_.”

“I’m surprised they didn’t anyway,” Mr. Bates said. 

Corporal Rawlins shrugged. “He and Jessop and the Wardmaster were all old pals from South Africa, apparently. Anyway, we all thought Barrow was pretty swank before that, but _after_ ….”

Thomas himself joined them, just in time to catch the tail end of Corporal Rawlins’s remark. “Please say you’re not telling them the one about the hand, just before dinner,” he said, giving Corporal Rawlins a shove as he dropped into the chair next to him. 

“It’s the one about Private Lamble and Corporal Diggs,” Mr. Bates said. 

Thomas scoffed. “Not sure that’s much better.”

Anna, having heard part of the one about the hand, disagreed. That one was much less suitable for pre-dinner conversation. “You never mentioned you were a war hero.”

“That’s ‘cause I’m not,” Thomas said, lighting a cigarette. “What did you tell them?” he asked Corporal Rawlins, suspiciously. 

“Just what happened,” Corporal Rawlins said. “As much as any of us know, any rate.” To Anna, he added, “I reckon the only reason he told me anything was that I was at the Collecting Post when they all turned up.” 

“That’s right,” Thomas said. “Wasn’t quite in my right mind yet.” 

“Not that he told me much,” Corporal Rawlins added. “I got most of it from Jessop.” 

“Yeah?” Thomas asked. “Did he tell you the bit where, after we put ‘im down, I was shaking so bad I couldn’t light a cigarette?”

“He told me the bit where you held it together long enough to finish the job,” Corporal Rawlins answered. 

The rest of them started coming in then, so the talk turned to lighter subjects, but Anna found her thoughts returning to the story Corporal Rawlins had told. It explained a great deal, she thought, about Thomas’s newfound obsession with _looking out for_ people. He’d seen Corporal Diggs fail in that duty—fail spectacularly, she gathered from Corporal Rawlins and Mr. Bates’s reactions—and fall into disgrace because of it. With his own rise so immediately connected to Diggs’s downfall, it was little wonder it had made a strong impression on him. 

#

After the blood grouping drive—a success—they barreled straight into preparations for Christmas. The previous year’s celebration had been muted, war-weary as they all were, but now that Downton was an Army medical facility, there was a patriotic obligation to make everything as festive as possible for the wounded officers. The Abbey’s usual grand Christmas tree was set up in the main hall—delivered by Mr. Basset and Lang, who Thomas was pleased to see looking well—and decorated by those of the patients who were physically able. 

Mrs. Patmore threw herself into holiday baking—inspired, perhaps, by intimations that the current voluntary rationing scheme would soon become mandatory—and the orderlies and VADs alike took to lingering downstairs in hopes of being able to volunteer to taste-test the latest batch. 

Lady Grantham fretted a great deal about the idea of Christmas presents for the patients—most, she explained at some length to Thomas and Major Clarkson, would have gifts sent to them from home, but they couldn’t be sure that all would, and they couldn’t possibly have anyone left out. It would be too dreadfully expensive for the Abbey to arrange something for everyone, but there was no way to know who’d be left without, and beyond that, it could seem _pointed_ if some received gifts from their hostess and some did not. 

Thomas struggled mightily to care about this crisis, and was relieved when Lady Edith proposed a solution: the officers could draw names from a hat, and each arrange a gift for the fellow-patient they drew. That way, everyone would get something, and the only cost to the household would be in Lady Edith’s time—because she would organize it, of course, and do the actual shopping on behalf of those who weren’t able to go into the village. 

It all seemed like a lot of fuss to Thomas, and likely to result in people wasting money on gifts the recipients didn’t even _want_ , but he certainly wasn’t going to argue about it with his betters, and all complaining about it in the orderlies’ room got him was Rawlins quoting Dickens at him. In the end, most of the patients seemed to enjoy it, whispering like a bunch of schoolgirls about who’d drawn whose name, and what they were giving them. 

Last year, the orderlies’ Christmas tea had consisted of a fairly grim plum pudding supplied by the woman who cooked for the hospital, but this year, Rawlins explained to them that the correct procedure was for everyone to contribute some of the contents of their parcels from home, to make a communal, festive spread in the orderlies’ room. Thomas, fearing more Dickens, bought a large box of biscuits to contribute, only to have Daisy suddenly, a day or two before Christmas, hand him a fruitcake he was apparently supposed to have been expecting. “What’s this?” he asked, looking at it.

“A fruitcake,” she said. 

“Obviously. What am I doing with it?”

“For the orderlies’ tea,” she said. 

“It’s seven o’clock in the morning,” he pointed out. Not to mention it wasn’t his job to take the orderlies’ tea up. 

“Not _today’s_ tea,” she said. “The Christmas tea. Percy said everyone was bringing things from their parcels.”

Oh. That made a certain kind of sense, but “Who the h—who’s Percy?”

Daisy gave him an exasperated look. “Corporal Rawlins.”

Rawlins’s name was _Percy_? Thomas decided to cherish this information, as it was the only Christmas present he was likely to get.

In that, too, however, he proved to be mistaken. The afternoon post brought a largish, and rather heavy, parcel from France, with Army postmarks. Thomas suspected a Christmas gift from one of the old crowd—it was about the right size to be a German helmet, for instance—and was considering putting it in his bottom desk drawer, where he’d stowed the fruitcake, to open on the day, when it occurred to him that there was nothing other than the date of its arrival to suggest that the package had anything do with Christmas at all. It could be, for all he knew, some bit of personal property he’d left behind somewhere—or worse, that _Peter_ had. The personal effects Peter’d left at his last billet had eventually been sent to Downton, as the last known address of his next-of-kin; if something else had turned up, presumably they’d send it here, too. 

So he opened it. Inside were a number of trench newspapers, wrapped around a familiar bottle of Armagnac. The enclosed note read,

_TB—_

_Thought you’d better have this for your office, now you’re Wardmaster._

_Hope you’re getting along all right up there. Things here about the same. One bit of good news, we got your mate Rouse in the last round of transfers—he managed to get out of being sent to the PBI on account of he’s a shortarse. Sharp enough to cut himself, that one, but if the war goes on long enough, I’ll knock some common sense into him._

_~~Miss you, son.~~ _

_Jessop says to tell you he misses you, but you and I both know you’re better off out of this shit-show._

_WT_

Thomas hadn’t quite managed to swallow down the lump in his throat when Rawlins came in. “Hey, have you seen—is that…?”

“Wardmaster’s private stock,” Thomas confirmed, stowing it in his bottom drawer. “Keep your mouth shut about it; I’m not putting it out for the Christmas tea.”

“No,” Rawlins said. “That’s good stuff—he had me into his office for a drink after we saw you off.”

“Yeah?” Thomas asked. “Did he give you the now-you’re-a-Corporal lecture?”

“I think that was the idea, but he was pretty gutted. Sending you away like that.” 

“I didn’t like it much, either,” Thomas admitted. 

“I remember, but now I’ve seen this place, I think you must’ve been mad.”

Knowing there was no way he could explain to Rawlins how very much he had not wanted to come back to this place, he said instead, “Didn’t know how it was all going to turn out, did I? Could’ve ended up as one of Sister Crawley’s scarecrows.” The Ward-Sister’s grander plans for the crippled ex-soldiers hadn’t borne fruit, at least not yet, but a horde of them turned up twice a week in the village for a free meal.

“Don’t say that,” Rawlins objected. 

There was also no way to explain that it had been a very real possibility—or that the danger hadn’t passed. Thomas changed the subject.

On Christmas Day, there was a great deal of extra work to do—not only did the patients have to be gotten down to church and back up again, but quite a number of them had visitors, all of whom seemed to need to be personally assured that their sons, brothers, husbands, or fiancés were eating enough and being kept warm—but most of the visitors left after tea-time, and then Lady Edith organized the patients in charades and other parlor games, allowing the orderlies to have their own tea in relative peace. In addition to the usual things, and the spread they’d put on out of everyone’s parcels, Lady Grantham had supplied a large box of Christmas crackers, so there was a fair bit of silliness involving paper hats and the reading of mottoes and the swapping of prizes. 

One thing to be said for all the excitement was that it tired the patients out, so most of them were happy to make an early night of it. Once the night shift came on, Thomas left them in charge of the few patients who were still awake, and retired to his office with Rawlins to open the Wardmaster’s Armagnac. 

While Thomas was setting out the glasses, Rawlins rather sheepishly tossed him a small, squashy sort of package, saying, “Here, Mother made you this. It’s probably a scarf. She’s not much of a knitter.”

It was socks—rather lumpy ones. “That was nice of her,” Thomas said uncertainly.

“I told her it’s not really the done thing to give one’s Sergeant presents from one’s mother,” Rawlins explained, “but she insisted.”

“Thanks,” Thomas said. Now, he supposed, he was going to have to write her a note. Setting the socks aside, he poured their drinks and handed one to Rawlins. “Happy Christmas,” he said, raising his.

“Happy Christmas,” Rawlins echoed. They drank, and settled into the armchairs by the fire. “Hard to believe it’s the fourth Christmas of the war.”

Was it? In some ways, it seemed like only a short time ago that he and Peter and Anna and…what was her name? Lisel, that was it. That they were in Kew Gardens having ice cream and champagne. In others, it seemed as though the war had been going on for decades. But Thomas just said, “Too right.” Lighting a cigarette, he asked idly, “What’d you do last year, at the 47th?”

Rawlins looked sheepish again. “You’re going to laugh,” he warned. 

“Well, now I’ve got to know.”

“We made a stocking for Mittens,” Rawlins confessed. 

He was right; Thomas did laugh. “Let me guess—Plank’s idea?”

Rawlins nodded. “I made him a toy mouse. Out of a sock.”

Thomas could almost picture it. “You’re daft; you know that?”

“I know, but it was sort of fun. We all got up a bit early and…pretended like he was excited to see what Father Christmas had brought him.”

“Good God.” Thomas laughed again, shaking his head. “What _did_ Father Christmas bring him? Besides the sock-mouse.”

“Couple of cans of sardines, a collar with a bell on it, stuff like that. Collins got some cat-mint somewhere; I think that was his favorite.”

Rawlins went on talking about the cat’s Christmas presents, and it was all very silly—honestly, that had to be the most spoiled cat on the Western Front—but still, Thomas sort of wished he had been there.

#

Early in the new year, Mrs. Hughes asked Thomas if he could go into Ripon with her.

“What for?” Thomas asked.

With a glance up and down the downstairs corridor, she drew him into her sitting room. “I took Ethel some things, at Christmas. Food, and some warm clothing, and such.” She sighed. “She’d found some way of making ends meet, but now that her condition is starting to show, that’s gone. So I said I’d take her some more food, but the street where she’s living is….” She trailed off. “I’d feel better having a man along, and that’s a fact.”

Thomas agreed, and they settled on Sunday afternoon as a time when they could both get away discreetly—Mr. Carson apparently didn’t know about this errand of mercy, and Mrs. Hughes wanted to keep it that way. 

Mrs. Hughes, it turned out, was not being at all precious about Ethel’s new situation. From a cramped and dirty street, where grimy, ill-clad children played in the gutters, they passed through a dank, urine-scented ginnel into a close of shabby houses, staring at one another through curtainless windows. To get to Ethel’s door, they had to pass by a knot of men in rough, dirty clothes.

“It’s a bed-sitting room,” she said, “so perhaps you’d best wait…I’ll just be a moment.”

Given a choice between standing out here and otherwise, Thomas wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t rather risk seeing Ethel’s underthings hung up to dry, but since Mrs. Hughes wasn’t giving him a choice, he nodded curtly and handed Mrs. Hughes the basket of provisions. 

Once the door had opened a crack to admit her, he lit a cigarette, more to imply some sort of reason he was standing about than anything else. He had a sneaking suspicion of just what it was Ethel had been doing to make ends meet, and it wasn’t long before his suspicions met with some corroborating evidence.

One of the doors opposite opened, and a woman stepped out—hair untidy, blouse a little too low, skirt a little too short. One of the men made a desultory sort of catcall, which the woman ignored. Picking her way through the litter and piles of slush adorning the street, the woman approached Thomas, essayed a coquettish smile, and said, “You looking for company, Tommy?”

Thomas was keenly aware that the men were watching, and that whatever he said was bound to be a source of amusement to them. Finally, he settled on, “No. Thank you.”

As expected, the men laughed nastily. As the woman made her way back across the street, one of the men said, “You’re too old for ‘im, luv.” 

“Get knotted!” the woman yelled back. 

By the time Mrs. Hughes came out, Thomas had smoked his way through three cigarettes, and watched the tart successfully solicit another man who turned up, in uniform and looking furtive. 

“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting,” she said. “The poor girl…well, she hasn’t anyone to talk to about her troubles.”

 _Oh, no problem, I was just out here fending off prostitutes._ “It’s fine.” 

But when Mrs. Hughes asked him again, a week or two later, Thomas told her he wasn’t waiting outside. 

“Very well,” she said. “Mrs. Crawley wishes to speak to her, so we really _must_ have a man.” 

Thomas suspected that the toughs would peg Mrs. Crawley instantly as a middle-class woman doing Good Works, and wouldn’t trouble her, but didn’t argue. 

This time, they went on a weekday morning, so the grimy urchins were not in evidence—these days, even filthy urchins went to school, at least until they were old enough to work—and there was only one man standing at the mouth of the ginnel. Keeping a watch for the Filth, Thomas suspected.

Mrs. Crawley did, at least, manage to appear unfazed by the scene, apart from a slight narrowing of her lips. Mrs. Hughes again knocked on the door, and they were admitted to a dark and narrow front hall, with peeling, damp-stained wallpaper and a number of battered wooden doors, each equipped with a sturdy lock. Mrs. Hughes knew the way, and led the party up a dingy, un-lit staircase, while Ethel brought up the rear. 

Ethel’s room was larger than Thomas would have guessed, but very sparsely furnished, with only an untidy bed and two wooden chairs. A layer of grime covered everything, and the small stove barely took the chill off the air. Ethel didn’t take off her coat—an old one of Mrs. Hughes’s, that didn’t quite meet over her swollen belly—and nor did the rest of them. “I’m sorry for the mess,” she said, taking the basket from Mrs. Hughes, and beginning to unpack it. “Please, sit.” 

Mrs. Hughes and Mrs. Crawley took the two chairs, so Thomas, for lack of a better option, posted himself by the door—and then mentally recited the Lord’s Prayer, followed by the multiplication tables, as Mrs. Crawley proceeded to ask Ethel several technical questions regarding her pregnancy. 

He only stopped when Mrs. Crawley’s tone changed from questioning to steamrollering. When he picked the thread back up again, she was saying, “—know that there are places for girls in your situation.”

“I won’t go to the workhouse, if that’s what you mean,” Ethel interjected, her jaw set stubbornly.

“Not at all,” Mrs. Crawley said. “I was able to secure you a place at a maternity home for unwed mothers. A former colleague of mine is Matron there, and she assures me that the girls are very well looked after—medical care, proper nutrition, and comfortable, hygienic surroundings.” Here, Mrs. Crawley glanced around the room, which was not at all comfortable or hygienic. “Most importantly, when you’re ready to leave, you’ll be supplied with a reference to enable to you to find respectable employment.”

To Thomas, it sounded almost too good to be true—even considering the part Mrs. Crawley hadn’t mentioned yet. He watched hope war with suspicion on Ethel’s pinched face. “How’s that?” she asked. “What kind of a reference?”

“The residents do most of the work to keep the home going, and prepare layettes for the babies, so they’ll be able to describe the work they’ve seen you do,” Mrs. Crawley explained. “The Matron writes them very carefully, to avoid any untruth, but give the impression you’ve been employed at a small lying-in hospital. That way, you’ll be able to put all of this behind you.”

It didn’t take Ethel long to see the catch. “But how will I explain the baby?”

Mrs. Crawley hesitated slightly. “The babies are placed in suitable homes, with couples who are desperate for a child, but unable to have their own. Very—”

“No,” Ethel interrupted. “I won’t give up my child to be raised by strangers.”

Nodding, Mrs. Crawley said sympathetically, “The girls do find it very difficult. That’s one of the reasons Matron has them make the layettes—so that they can send their babies off with something they made with their own hands. And the parents are very carefully selected—the Matron interviews each couple at length, they must provide references, from their family doctor and a member of clergy, and they must demonstrate that they have the means to provide materially for the child.”

“I don’t care,” Ethel said, defiantly. “A child needs its mother.” She folded her arms protectively over her belly. 

“Ethel,” Mrs. Hughes said sharply. “Mrs. Crawley has gone to some trouble to help you. You’ll not be rude to her.”

Mrs. Crawley smiled tightly. “It’s all right. I understand that this is difficult for you to accept, Ethel. But you can’t go on like this. The way that you’re living now isn’t healthy for you, or the baby.” 

“I’ll manage,” Ethel said firmly. Or petulantly. Thomas wasn’t sure.

“You _aren’t_ managing,” Mrs. Hughes said flatly. “And it will only get worse once the baby is born.”

Mrs. Crawley jumped in. “Where do you intend to _have_ the baby? Here? Who will help you?”

Ethel sniffed, and looked away. “There’s a woman up the street who delivers babies. I’ve put aside the money to pay her.” 

“Does this woman have medical training?” Mrs. Crawley asked. 

“She knows what she’s doing,” Ethel said. “The girls say she delivers all of the babies hereabouts. And she don’t ask nosy questions.” 

That, Thomas thought, was probably true. In their line of work, Ethel’s neighbors would need the services of a woman like that. 

“At the home, you’ll be attended by a trained nurse, experienced in midwifery, with a doctor on call should anything go wrong,” Mrs. Crawley said. “Surely you can see that’s better.”

“Except they take my baby away,” Ethel said. 

“To a better life,” Mrs. Hughes said. “What kind of a future do you think you can give the child? How will you support it?”

“I’ve thought about that,” Ethel said. “I’ll find a place where I can have the baby with me. A small house where they can’t be too picky.”

She wasn’t half living in a dream world, was she? But the next part of the fantasy was, if anything, even more improbable. 

She hurried on, “All I need is a reference that explains everything. You can write it, Mrs. Hughes. Just say that I left service to marry a soldier, only now I’ve written you that he’s been killed, so I have to go back to work.”

Mrs. Hughes drew her breath in sharply. “I most certainly cannot,” she said. “I’m sorry, but if I write a false character for you, the character of _every_ girl who’s worked at Downton Abbey will be suspect. You’ve broken the rules, my girl, and I won’t pretend you haven’t.”

“ _I’ve_ broken the rules?” Ethel exclaimed. “What about him?” She jerked her chin in Thomas’s direction. “You all know what he’s like, and it’s worse than anything I’ve done.”

 _Oh, you bitch_ , Thomas thought. But in the back of his mind, he knew that, were their positions reversed—he, out on the street for being a sod, and she, the unrepentant slut, welcomed back with open arms—he’d have said the same thing. 

Mrs. Crawley looked at him with a quizzical expression, but before she could ask the obvious question, Mrs. Hughes said, “How dare you! Sergeant Barrow has done everything he can to help you.”

Not _quite_ everything. In Ethel’s place, Thomas’s next move would be a blackmail demand. But she likely didn’t know, any more than Mrs. Hughes did, that there was, in fact, one thing he could do, which would change everything.

As Thomas had very good reason to know, a woman’s husband was the legal father of her child, no matter how soon after the marriage the birth took place. _Marry me or I’ll tell_ , she could say. 

Except, Thomas realized with relief, what could she tell? The police wouldn’t be at all interested in her story—he hadn’t actually done anything illegal since before the war, unless kissing counted, and she didn’t have a shred of proof that he ever had. Nor would the Army, for the same reason. And as she’d said, everyone at Downton already knew. 

Well, apart from Mrs. Crawley, anyway. As she was the bridge between the household and the hospital—where they most definitely did _not_ know—her finding out could make things a bit uncomfortable. More than a bit, really. But not enough that he’d shackle himself to Ethel—of all people—for life, just to avoid it.

While Thomas thought about this, Mrs. Hughes went on remonstrating with Ethel, saying how she’d no one to blame but herself for her situation—not true, Thomas noted absently; there was _one_ other person to blame—and if she had any sense, she’d be grateful for the help that was offered and not demand the moon. “But I suppose if you had any sense, you’d not be in this mess to begin with,” Mrs. Hughes concluded.

Ethel was taking short, shuddering breaths, very obviously trying not to cry. Thomas thought of Major Bryant saying _what I got up to with a round-heeled housemaid_ and Philip saying _who’d believe the word of a greedy footman_. “It isn’t right, that you’re ruined and the Major gets off Scot-free.” The women all looked at him. “Nothing any of us can do about it, but it isn’t right.”

Silence stretched for a moment, until Mrs. Hughes sighed. “No, I suppose it isn’t, but it’s the way of the world.” 

The steamroller started up again. “You needn’t be ruined, if you do the sensible thing,” she pointed out. 

Ethel, her composure now restored, repeated her arguments against giving up the baby. She and Mrs. Crawley went round on the subject again, until Mrs. Hughes observed that they’d need to hurry if they were to catch the ‘bus back to Downton village. 

Mrs. Crawley rummaged in her handbag and produced a leaflet. “I’ll leave this with you,” she said. “It’s some information on the maternity home—it’s intended for donors, but it should give you something to think about.”

Or something to light the fire with, at least. Ethel looked at it sullenly for a moment before snatching it out of Mrs. Crawley’s hand. 

“But I wouldn’t think too long,” she added. “The Matron won’t hold your place forever. Write to Mrs. Hughes, as soon as you’ve made up your mind, and we can make the arrangements.”

They ended up reaching the bus stop just in time to see the bus leaving, and, after a brief discussion, retreated inside a shabby but respectable tea shop to await the next one. Once they’d all been given cups of weak and over-sweetened tea, Mrs. Crawley asked, “Sergeant, what did Ethel mean, we all know about you?”

Bloody hell. Thomas had been hoping she’d forgotten about that. He looked to Mrs. Hughes in hope of some plausible answer, but she only pressed her lips together. Finally, he said, “That I’m illegitimate, I expect.” As an explanation, it was _slightly_ more acceptable for discussing in a public place than the real one. 

“Oh,” Mrs. Crawley said. “Oh, I see. Well. Now I understand why you’ve taken an interest in her situation.” 

Thomas hadn’t actually thought of it that way, but now she mentioned it, that might be part of it. “Hm,” he said, and sipped his tea. 

Mrs. Crawley sipped hers as well, and recovered enough to say, “Perhaps you could—another time—help Ethel to understand the…effects, for the child. I’m sure you agree that adoption by a respectable couple is the best choice.”

Thomas _wasn’t_ entirely sure of that, really. It would improve the child’s prospects in life, certainly. He wasn’t stupid enough to not realize that he’d have been a great deal worse off if he hadn’t _appeared_ to have a father. “If they really can’t have their own, I suppose,” he said. The kid would never know anything different, as long as it didn’t have brothers and sisters who were their parents’ real children. 

“That’s one of the reasons they require a reference from a doctor,” Mrs. Crawley said. “Apparently a lot of the girls worry that the adoptive parents just want someone to work for free.”

Thomas hadn’t thought of that—but then, there had to be easier ways of getting a cheap worker than starting with a helpless infant. 

Mrs. Hughes went on to ask a few questions about the unwed mothers’ home and how the adopting couples were chosen, and Mrs. Crawley’s lengthy answers carried them through until the next ‘bus arrived. 

On the way back, Thomas found his thoughts turning to the options Ethel had before her. It was too bad that she hadn’t been quick enough on the jump to trick another man into marrying her. From the questions he’d tried not to listen to, he gathered that she must’ve already been in the family way when she’d been sacked from Downton. If she’d just managed to sleep with Griff before she left….

Well, it was far too late for that now. Finding anyone stupid enough to marry her when she was obviously carrying another man’s child was even less likely than finding a place in service with a baby in tow. Honestly, she must think she lived in fairyland.

(Thomas remembered lies he’d been told, about running away to Paris or a Greek island. He remembered believing them, once or twice. He remembered convincing himself that he believed them, after that. Ethel was about the age he’d been, then.)

If she was fantasizing, she might as well imagine something _good_. A man falling madly in love with her, and agreeing to give the kid his name. Maybe he’d…hm, he’d lost his todger in the war. That happened sometimes—mustard gas, usually. They didn’t often live, but what the hell. Say he had. Say, further, that he’d always wanted to be a father, but he’d thought that dream was dead, until a chance meeting with a heavily pregnant tart….

Not even Ethel was dim enough to imagine rubbish like that. 

They got off the ‘bus in Downton village, Sister Crawley heading to the hospital, Thomas and Mrs. Hughes up the lane to the house. As they walked, Mrs. Hughes said, “I don’t suppose it’s any of my business, but what you told Mrs. Crawley….”

Thomas glanced over at her. He’d sort of assumed Anna would have told her, at some point. “It’s true. ‘S why I don’t work at Barrow and Son’s Fine Clocks. She married him later.”

“Oh,” she said. “He must’ve been a very good man, to have married a woman with a…past like that.”

“No, she tricked him into it.” He looked straight ahead. “I don’t really enjoy talking about it.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t pry.”

 _No, you shouldn’t_. “I couldn’t exactly tell her about the other thing.” 

“I’m surprised Ethel brought _that_ up,” Mrs. Hughes noted.

“I’m not. She’s proper cornered.”

“Well, yes, but I don’t see what… _that_ …has to do with anything.”

Mrs. Hughes, Thomas reflected, would be utterly unfamiliar with the specific misery that was seeing someone else get the mercy neither of you deserved. “I do,” he said. They walked on for a moment, their feet crunching in the gravel of the drive. “Wonder if she’ll think of blackmailing me?”

“I should hope not!”

He shrugged. “She won’t get very far, without evidence,” he said. 

Mrs. Hughes gave him a look he couldn’t read, and shook her head.

#

“…and apparently he’s expecting Ethel to blackmail him, now,” Mrs. Hughes added. 

Anna was, perhaps, less surprised than Mrs. Hughes was by this information—she was familiar with Thomas’s habit of considering blackmail as a solution to life’s problems. Mrs. Hughes had invited her into her sitting room to tell her how Ethel was faring, but had veered off into Thomas’s revelation—new to Mrs. Hughes—that he was illegitimate. He had, she gathered, given Mrs. Hughes a more abbreviated version of the story than he’d told her. “I doubt she’ll think of it,” she said. Ethel and Thomas did have some things in common, but that wasn’t one of them. 

“He only said that she wouldn’t get far without evidence. I hope that means he’s being careful.”

It wasn’t the first time that Mrs. Hughes had made a remark that hinted in the direction of speculation about Thomas’s friendship with Corporal Rawlins. “I expect he is,” she said. She was inclined to think that, had there been anything going on, they would be a great deal more discreet. Likely, Corporal Rawlins was completely unaware that there was anything to be discreet _about_.

She only hoped that Thomas didn’t get his heart broken. 

If anyone wasn’t wondering about Corporal Rawlins on their own, Miss O’Brien put the idea into their heads. She didn’t say much in Thomas’s hearing—perhaps Mr. Carson’s forced retreat had inspired some caution in her—but she wasn’t in the habit of looking over her shoulder before letting loose with a cutting remark, and it was, perhaps, inevitable that she’d eventually slip up.

It was almost spring by the time she did. Thomas was late to dinner, and Mr. Carson had also left the table, having been summoned up to the small library to deal with some crisis or other. Daisy came in to the servants’ hall to ask if she ought to put a plate in the oven for Thomas.

“I expect he’ll be back any minute,” Anna said. “He was only going down to the village for a pint.” The RAMC men often went to the pub after their shift, and while Thomas hadn’t been in the habit of joining them before, he now sometimes—with a great show of reluctance—allowed Corporal Rawlins to drag him down there. 

“Or so he says,” Miss O’Brien noted. “I only hope he doesn’t bring his fancy man back with him. Turns my stomach, the way they carry on.”

They were all trying to avoid looking at each other, as they did when Miss O’Brien said something like that, when Thomas stepped into the room. “I beg your pardon, Miss O’Brien,” he said silkily—his version of her butter-wouldn’t-melt voice—as he went round the table to his place. “Just what is it you’re suggesting?”

If he hoped to fluster her, he had miscalculated. Miss O’Brien tilted her head inquisitively, then tittered. “Did you think you were fooling anyone?” she asked. “You and your _Army pal_?”

Thomas’s face went completely blank, wiped of all expression. “You’re mistaken,” he said flatly. 

Miss O’Brien scoffed. “We all know,” she said. “Don’t try—”

“That’s _enough_ , Miss O’Brien,” Mrs. Hughes said sharply. “Anna, pass me his plate, please.”

Anna did so, and Thomas slipped into the seat beside her, jaw clenched. He was not actually shaking, but she somehow had the sense of a kettle with the lid clamped on too tightly, at full boil. 

Mrs. Hughes passed him a generous serving of stew and dumplings, but he barely picked at it. Mr. Carson returned, and—either oblivious to the atmosphere or doing a very good job of pretending to be—explained to them that his lordship had gone to fix himself an after-dinner whiskey and found the decanter nearly empty. “I very much fear that leaving it out has proven too tempting for one of the _hospital people_.”

Thomas didn’t rise to this bait, and gradually, normal conversation resumed. Once she judged that everyone else was sufficiently distracted, she said, “Thomas—”

She’d only meant to ask him some innocent question—if he’d had a nice time at the pub, or something like that—but he turned to her with a look of such intense fury that she fell silent. 

As soon as Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes had gone out, he _bolted_ for the courtyard. Anna waited a moment or two and then, with some trepidation, followed.

She looked for him on his usual crate, but found him instead pacing angrily. “Is that what you all think?” he demanded. 

“Thomas—”

“Is it?”

She sighed. “Most of us don’t think it’s any of our business.” 

He huffed, and inhaled deeply on his cigarette. Anna thought he might be building up to say something particularly scathing—or profane—but instead he blew the smoke out slowly and said quietly, “He isn’t. He’s normal.”

“All right,” she said. “Does he…know?”

“No,” Thomas snapped. “And he isn’t going to.” 

If that was how he wanted it, Anna hoped he was right. Miss O’Brien wouldn’t go that far, surely. 

#

 _So I’m not allowed_ friends _now, am I?_ Thomas thought, pacing the courtyard as he smoked another angry cigarette. _Or is it that they think nobody could possibly like me if I wasn’t sleeping with him? Just bloody marvelous, either way. Fucking fantastic_. 

In the back of his mind, Thomas knew he wasn’t being fair. He ought to have put a stop to Rawlins pawing at him—ought to have put a stop to it back when it started, in France, and at the very latest, when he came to Downton. He couldn’t pretend to be surprised what people thought about it. 

Except that if Rawlins really _was_ …like him, he’d know better than to carry on like that. 

Not that the rest of them had any right to go… _speculating_ , about his private life. What, did they talk about it every time his back was turned? 

_We don’t think it’s any of our business_ , Anna had said. Hah. It wasn’t, but there was no denying they were all obsessed with every detail of who might be pairing off with whom, upstairs and down. That they felt the need to pretend otherwise when it came to him only proved what they really thought—that he was a freak, a degenerate. Couldn’t be spoken about above a whisper. 

But he had to be grateful for that, too, because if it were any different, Rawlins _would_ find out. 

Hell, he might anyway—Thomas had walked in on some of their careless chit-chat; what was to stop Rawlins from doing the same? Or any of the men, for that matter. 

He ought to have run the other way, when the subject of the convalescent home first came up. Or quashed it, somehow. He must’ve been mad, mixing his two lives like that, and thinking his secret would stay a secret.

One thing he could say for his men, they wouldn’t believe it easily—not of the Magnificent Bastard. Everyone knew men of that sort were weak, and Rawlins had told enough tales of his deeds at the Front to make the story hard to swallow. 

But if the question were raised….well, Thomas never quite knew how it was that people could _tell_ , so he couldn’t exactly do anything about it, could he? The best thing might be to create some convincing evidence to the contrary. A girl in the village. Though how you went about getting a girl to walk out with you, he didn’t know. 

It was almost too bad that Ethel _wasn’t_ bright enough to try to blackmail him into marrying her. A married bloke wasn’t entirely above suspicion, but one who’d had to marry his girl in a hurry? _He_ had to be normal. 

It really would be the perfect alibi. Not that the thought of marrying somebody—passing for normal—hadn’t occurred to him before, but he’d never thought he could fool the girl. And a wife finding out you were carrying on with other blokes behind her back was a good way to end up in prison. 

But Ethel…well, she already knew, and she wasn’t in any position to cast stones. The illusion of respectability would help them both, really. But she’d never think of it. 

It wasn’t until he was lighting his third cigarette that it occurred to him that she didn’t _have_ to. She was still stalling Sister Crawley on an answer to the maternity home plan, still getting food from Mrs. Hughes every week. He could suggest it. She’d almost have to agree. They could, after the war, go someplace nobody knew them, and pretend to be a respectable family. 

It might be sort of nice, having a kid. It wasn’t likely he’d be a great dad, but he wouldn’t be any worse than his own so-called father. 

And it certainly would serve Mr. Barrow right to have his name given to _another_ fatherless bastard. He went to sleep imagining scenarios in which he could find himself in Barrow and Son’s Fine Clocks, announcing that fact.

By morning, sanity had reasserted itself. Rawlins didn’t suspect anything, nor did any of the others. If O’Brien did say anything that required an explanation, he could simply—and truthfully—say that she was a vindictive bitch who was out to get him. 

And as for the other part…well, he knew perfectly well how miserable two unhappily married people could make each other, and if he ever started to forget, he had the Bateses to look at as an example. (Bates’s private detective had succeeded in getting photographs of the adulterous couple, but so far not in identifying Mrs. Bates’s partner in crime.) If it were Anna, for instance, or Daisy, it might work, but Ethel was…well, when you got down to it, she was too much like him. 

Before her downfall, she’d had the same conviction he once had, of being meant for a better life than scraping along, and while she might be grateful at first for being rescued from her current impossible situation, it wouldn’t last. They’d be lucky to make it a year or two before they were at each other’s throats. 

And besides all that, he didn’t have any idea how he was going to support _himself_ once the war was over, let alone a wife and baby. 

So all round, it was probably the stupidest idea he’d ever had…but still, at idle moments, he found his thoughts returning to the idea of being a Dad. Carrying a little daughter on his shoulders, or teaching a son to bowl a cricket ball. Telling bedtime stories about working in a grand house—as his mother had done for him—or mending their toys when they broke them. 

Ethel was absent from these fantasies, except as a vague background figure who packed picnics and waved them off on adventures—not that the real Ethel would do anything of the kind. Once or twice, he imagined himself as a _that nice widower, doing his best with his little boy,_ or girl, but he put a stop to those imaginings, out of a sort of superstitious caution—though now he’d thought it once, if she really _did_ die in childbirth, he’d always sort of wonder if he’d made it happen.

It was a bit of a relief when Ethel agreed, at last, to go to the maternity home. She was, by then, about to pop, and the day after she gave her consent, Mrs. Crawley had her loaded onto a train. Now he didn’t have to worry about her, or about the baby, or—most importantly—about him doing anything stupid. 

It really was for the best, he thought, as Mrs. Crawley told him she’d had a telegram from her friend the Matron, saying Ethel had arrived safely. After all, _he’d_ been able to imagine thinking of the baby as his own, and he wasn’t even a particularly nice person. That was a reason to think that the father in a carefully-selected adopting couple—desperate for a child—would be able to manage it in real life. 

And Ethel…well, she’d get over it. 

#

“There you are,” Rawlins said, taking out his cigarettes as he went to sit next to Barrow on their smoking crate outside the back door. 

“Hullo,” Barrow said, and moved to another crate. 

He’d done that a few times lately—and every time he did it, Rawlins remembered him shouting, _Don’t you know that I come out here to get_ away _from you?_ He’d been telling himself that, since he knew what it looked like when Barrow was angry with him, that couldn’t be what was happening now. But he wasn’t really sure. “Sorry,” he said. “Did you—come out here to be alone?”

Barrow glanced at him. “No,” he said, taking a quick pull from his cigarette. “I’ve me own room here; I don’t need to freeze my bollocks off if I want a moment’s peace.”

It wasn’t freezing out—it was one of those warmish days you sometimes got in early spring—and Rawlins suspected Barrow was remembering France, as well. “Right,” he said vaguely. 

“I’m just a grumpy bastard; you know that,” he added.

“Right,” Rawlins repeated, and if Barrow had been sitting next to him, he’d have knocked their shoulders together. But he wasn’t. 

“Something wrong?” Barrow asked. 

“No,” he said. There was, really—well, not wrong, exactly, but something he wouldn’t have minded talking about. He’d had a letter from his father, who was convinced the war would end any minute now—he had a bee in his bonnet that the German offensives going on right now were a sort of last gasp before they gave up—and was full of plans for what would come after. Specifically, Rawlins’s future role at the paper factory his father ran. Now that Rawlins had “experience running a military unit,” Father said, he ought to be ready to “pull his socks up and take on some real responsibility at the factory.”

Rawlins sort of wanted to tell him that it was Barrow running the unit, not him, and if Father thought that was a relevant qualification, maybe he ought to offer _Barrow_ the job. But Father would think he’d lost his mind, and Barrow wouldn’t take it much better. He’d think Rawlins was being a condescending ponce, and he’d probably be right. 

Instead, he asked, “What are you grumpy about? The war news?” Despite what Father thought, the current news wasn’t particularly good—now the Russians had left the war, the Germans could throw everything they had left at the Western Front. They’d managed a couple of minor breakthroughs, in the Fifth Army areas. 

“Not really,” Barrow said. He started to say something else, then took a pull from his cigarette instead. “You remember Major Bryant?”

“Sort of.” He’d left not long after Rawlins had arrived, and since he’d been pretty much recovered, hadn’t really needed any medical care. 

“He got one of the housemaids up the spout,” Barrow said. 

Rawlins’s eyes widened. “Who?” Not Barrow’s friend Anna, certainly—she was almost-but-not-quite engaged to that older man, Mr. Bates.

“She left before you came,” Barrow said. “Got tossed out, really. Because of…that.” 

“Oh.” 

“I was thinking about—well, never mind.” 

Something occurred to Rawlins. “Did you… _like_ her?” Barrow never really talked about girls—not the way everyone else did, anyway. That was all right with Rawlins—he got along fine with girls, and figured he’d marry one eventually, but he didn’t entirely understand the magnetic fascination that the entire sex had for most chaps. 

“No,” Barrow said. “Well, a bit. Suppose. Maybe. I’ve just been thinking about how she got a raw deal.”

“Oh.” It was, Rawlins thought, the sort of thing he’d have talked about with Rouse, instead, if Rouse had been here. The sort of thing they’d both think he was too middle-class to really understand. Maybe he was—he couldn’t imagine anyone _else_ he knew feeling sorry for a girl like that. “What’ll happen to her?”

“She’s all right, really. The Ward Sister got her into a place for…girls in that situation. They’ll look after her until the baby’s born, then adopt it out.” 

“That…doesn’t sound too bad,” Rawlins said. 

“Yeah,” Barrow said. “It’s the only way, really. It’s just she’s not keen on giving the baby up.”

Now that he thought about it, he supposed she wouldn’t be. “Supposed to be a woman’s highest duty, isn’t it? Motherhood?”

“Only if it happens in the right way,” Barrow said, tossing his cigarette-end down and stamping it out. “Hurry up and finish that; we’ve got work waiting for us.”

But he did stay, sitting there on the other crate, until Rawlins finished his cigarette, so Rawlins supposed everything was all right between them.

#

Thomas probably should have realized what the sound was, as soon as he heard it. It wasn’t as though he’d never heard a baby cry before—he could remember when Alice and James, his half-siblings, had been born. But, thick as he was, he thought it was, he didn’t know, an injured cat or something. He’d already started toward the sound when he heard something that clearly _wasn’t_ a cat. “Ssshh! Ssshhh, don’t cry, don’t cry.”

The person was aiming for a comforting tone, but sounded almost desperate. Thomas went round to the other side of the meat store, and there was Ethel, crouched with her back against the wall, holding a blanket-wrapped bundle. 

“Bloody hell,” he said. 

“Thomas!” Awkwardly, she got to her feet. “You’ve got to help me.”

“What are you _doing_ here?” 

“They were going to take him away,” she said. “I can’t let them, I can’t. I thought I could, but I can’t.”

Bloody buggering Christ. Running away from the tarts’ home, he supposed he could understand, but why in God’s name had she thought turning up _here_ would help? “Major Bryant’s long gone.” Not that he’d be any use if he weren’t. 

“I know,” she said, sniffling. “Can you get Mrs. Hughes?”

“She’s gone to bed. Ages ago.” It was the middle of the night; the only person up was Prentiss, who had night duty at the convalescent home. Thomas was meant to be sleeping in his office—he was on-call again—but he’d felt restless. 

Ethel looked at him as though expecting him to suggest some alternative solution. 

He sighed. “Come on.”

Thomas led her through the sleeping house to his office—the only place he could plausibly claim to have any right to take an unexpected visitor—and put the kettle on. “Keep him quiet,” he said. “If the patients wake up, we’ll have a lot of explaining to do.” 

Ethel nodded tightly. “Is there somewhere I can….”

He waited in vain for her to finish the sentence. “Where you can what?” She’d worked here; she knew where the lavs were, so it couldn’t be that. 

“Feed him.” 

Oh, Christ. Ducking back behind the linen shelves, he dragged one of his armchairs into the far corner, and turned it to face the wall. “I think that’s the best we’re going to do. I won’t look.” 

Ethel and the baby disappeared behind the shelves. Thomas did _not_ look, but once the kettle had come to a boil and he took it off the flame, he couldn’t help hearing the wet sucking sounds coming from back there. 

Finally, the sound stopped. There were some rustlings of clothing, and a moment later, Ethel appeared, red-faced. “He should be all right for a bit now.” 

“Good,” Thomas said. “I made you some tea.” He gestured to it, realizing as he did so that he couldn’t quite see how she was going to drink it holding the baby. “Do you want me to hold, uh, him?”

“No,” she said quickly. “I’ll manage.” She sat, carefully shifting the baby into the crook of one arm, to free up the other for drinking tea. 

The baby was very small, and the horrifying thought occurred to Thomas that he might have been _just born_. If he had, there could be…he didn’t know. _Medical_ consequences of some kind from Ethel’s flight. If that was even a possibility, he was going to summon the Ward Sister immediately, middle of the night or not. “How, er, how old is he?”

“Two weeks,” Ethel said, and Thomas breathed a sigh of relief. That had to be long enough for things to have, well, got back to normal. “That’s how long they let you keep them,” she went on. “They don’t tell you, but I paid attention, to what was happening with the other girls. Sometimes it’s a day or two more, but I couldn’t be sure, so I had to leave today.” 

Had she been planning this the whole time? Go there, get the nutrition and medical care Sister Crawley had been banging on about, and then scarper? 

If she had, Thomas sort of admired her for it. 

And also sort of thought she was an idiot. “So what’s your plan?” he asked. When she didn’t answer, he pressed, “You wanted Mrs. Hughes. What did you think she was going to do?”

Ethel rotated her teacup on the table. “I don’t know,” she said, her voice small. “I didn’t…this was as far as I got.” 

Wonderful. Just bloody wonderful. “You can’t stay here,” he pointed out. “Even if Mrs. Hughes wanted to let you, she couldn’t without the family’s approval. And you know they won’t approve.” 

“I didn’t know where else to come,” she said. 

Most people, Thomas thought, would have asked about her family. But it wasn’t likely—or even possible—that she hadn’t thought of that. She’d have her reasons, and it didn’t really matter what they were. “Do you know anyone who isn’t a servant? Anyone who has their own place, and might take you in for a bit?”

She shook her head. 

Thomas ran through his own list. It certainly wasn’t the sort of thing he could reach out to the Wardmaster about, nor Lieutenant Courtenay—who was barely answering his letters anymore, anyway. Nurse Crawley might _want_ to help, but she couldn’t do much without her parents finding out, and they’d skin Thomas alive for involving her in something like this. Unless maybe she could talk Branson into—no; he couldn’t possibly keep a woman and a baby in his cottage without someone noticing, and also, if Ethel had any tatters of respectability remaining, cohabiting with a man would destroy them. 

“Mrs. Crawley,” he said. 

“No!” The sharp tone of Ethel’s voice roused the baby, and she immediately moved to shush him. Once he was settled again, she said, “She’ll only take him away.”

She would certainly _try_. “Can she?” Thomas asked. “Did you….” He wasn’t sure how these things worked. “Sign your name to anything, saying you’d give up the baby?”

“No,” she said. “They didn’t ask me to. Do you think that matters?” Her tone was hopeful.

“I don’t know.” Surely it would be kidnapping, to take the baby away from her against her will. Wouldn’t it? “I don’t have any other ideas.” 

“Maybe Mrs. Hughes will think of something,” she said, and yawned hugely. 

With an internal sigh, Thomas pointed to the stretcher-bed he was meant to be sleeping on. “You might as well get a bit of rest. Be a couple of hours until anyone’s up.”

When he made the offer, Thomas had thought he’d go get what sleep he could on one of the sofas in the recreation room, but it didn’t take long for him to realize that, if Prentiss came looking for him and found, instead, a woman and a baby, there would be a hue and cry.

He’d also be startled to find Thomas in here with a woman and a baby, but that was the sort of thing a bloke could understand the need to keep quiet. Thomas could figure out later how to answer the inevitable questions. 

So he passed what was left of the night in an armchair—the one Ethel _hadn’t_ used for baby-feeding purposes—and when the kitchen staff started getting up, he nipped downstairs and told Daisy to fetch Mrs. Hughes.

“What for?” she asked.

“Never you mind. She’ll understand once I’ve spoken to her.”

With a show of reluctance, Daisy went. It took almost a quarter of an hour for Mrs. Hughes to come downstairs, and the entire time, Thomas worried that Ethel was about to be discovered. When she finally turned up, he said, bluntly and without preamble, “Ethel’s here.”

“ _What_?” 

She looked toward her sitting room, but Thomas said, “She’s in my office. I don’t think it’s a good idea to leave her alone there much longer. Anybody could find her.”

Fortunately, Mrs. Hughes grasped his point, and they started upstairs. As they went, she said, “I knew that maternity home was too good to be true. I suppose they tossed her out, as soon as they had their mitts on the baby, without any of what they promised?”

Filing away this cynical side of Mrs. Hughes for further investigation, Thomas said, “Er…not exactly. More the opposite, really.”

“What do you mean?”

But by that time, they had reached Thomas’s office. He opened the door and silently pointed to Ethel, still asleep on the stretcher-bed, with the baby on her chest. 

“Oh, dear God,” Mrs. Hughes said. 

Ethel startled awake, sitting up and looking about as if unsure where she was. “Mrs. Hughes,” she said, her voice sleep-roughened. “You’ve got to help.”

“I’ll leave you to it,” Thomas said. “Help yourself to tea, if you like.” He withdrew. 

For lack of any better options, he went and helped the kitchen girls do the fires in the patients’ rooms. By the time he’d worked his way around to the main ward, Prentiss, who was on duty at the desk there, said, “There you are. Mrs. Hughes said to tell you she’d gone down to her sitting room.”

There was a hint of a question in his tone, but Thomas just said, “Thank you,” and retreated to his office, for a much-needed cup of tea and a cigarette. It wasn’t long after that the day shift started to trickle in, and from there the usual morning chores carried him along. 

As they were finishing morning dressing changes, Sister Crawley turned up. “I’m afraid I have some alarming news,” she said. 

Oh, damn. “Yes, ma’am?” Thomas asked, hoping it was something else.

It wasn’t. “My friend who is Matron at the maternity home telephoned,” she explained. “It seems that Ethel has absconded, with the baby. She hoped I might have some idea where she might have gone.”

After a hasty weighing of the options, Thomas concluded that a lie on the subject could not go undetected for long, and would cause more trouble for him than it was worth. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “She turned up here, a few hours ago.”

“Thank heavens,” Sister Crawely said, sighing with relief. “But why didn’t you notify me immediately?”

 _For one thing, it wasn’t any of your business._ “It was a bit too early, ma’am, and there didn’t seem to be any _medical_ emergency. Mrs. Hughes took charge of her, once she was up. Shall I take you to her?”

Sister Crawley agreed, and as Thomas led her downstairs, said, “The baby seemed all right? And Ethel?”

“Yes, ma’am. Far as I could tell.” So Ethel was an afterthought, now. Typical. 

They were in Mrs. Hughes’s sitting room. At the sight of Sister Crawley, Ethel got up from where she was sitting and retreated into the far corner of the room, holding the baby to her chest. “I won’t give him up,” she said. “I won’t, and you can’t make me.”

Sister Crawley took a deep breath, then glanced over at him. “Thank you, Sergeant,” she said. 

Before withdrawing, Thomas attempted to give Ethel a look which would say, _Sorry, this wasn’t my idea_ , _she just turned up_ , but it was rather a lot for a facial expression to communicate, and he didn’t think he succeeded. 

Back upstairs, the other men had noticed that something out of the ordinary was afoot, and it wasn’t long before Rawlins turned up in Thomas’s office to pump him for the details. Since he’d already told Rawlins about Ethel—why, he wasn’t sure—he explained quickly, concluding, “Best let the women handle it.”

“Too right,” Rawlins said. “Why d’you suppose she came _here_?”

“I gather she didn’t have any other ideas,” Thomas said. Rawlins didn’t press the point, fortunately, and Thomas moved on. “Can you take on-call duty tonight? I didn’t get much sleep, with her turning up in the middle of the night.”

“Sure,” Rawlins said, also fortunately. Thomas could tell it was going to be a long day, but at least there was some end in sight.

By mid-day, when Thomas’s duties took him downstairs again, Mrs. Hughes’s sitting-room door was open, and there was no sign of Ethel. Unfortunately, there were too many other people around for him to ask where she had gone, but it wasn’t, after all, any of his business. 

Still, when he and Rawlins went down to dinner, he hoped to find a moment to ask her. Sending Rawlins ahead to the servants’ hall, he checked her sitting room—empty. He heard her voice coming from the kitchen, and went that way, but she and Mrs. Patmore were standing over a brace of rabbit carcasses, having words. “—can’t ask too many questions,” Mrs. Patmore was saying.

“I understand about the shortages,” Mrs. Hughes said tightly. “But—”

Clearly not the moment for it. Thomas retreated to the servants’ hall—and promptly walked into the middle of another conversation.

“—must say, it’s very broad-minded of you,” Miss O’Brien was saying to Rawlins.

Oddly enough, the first thing Thomas thought was that she was making some reference to Ethel’s situation—although how O’Brien would know that Rawlins knew about it, Thomas had no idea.

Her next words proved otherwise. “Him being the way he is,” she went on, looking directly at Thomas. “I should think most men would be worried about someone getting the wrong idea.”

 _Oh, you bitch_. Thomas had been about to sit down, but now stood, frozen in horror, his hand on the back of his chair. 

“What way he is?” Rawlins asked, looking puzzled. “Barrow, what’s she—”

“Nothing,” Thomas said. Right; he’d expected something like this, planned for it—though he hadn’t expected her to try it in the _middle of the servants’ hall_. What had he been planning to say? “She’s just being spiteful. Like she is.”

“That’s right,” Bates began, but O’Brien interrupted him, assuming an expression of concern.

“Oh, gracious me,” she said. “Do you mean you don’t know? I never imagined, you being such good friends. Or of course I wouldn’t have said anything.”

“Said anything about what?” Rawlins asked again. 

“I don’t think I should say,” O’Brien said. 

Good. That was good. She’d shut up, and he’d think of something—hell, he’d handled a situation like this once before, with Sister Crawley. He’d pull Rawlins aside, after dinner, and tell him about being an actual bastard. Thomas wasn’t sure how he would take it, but it wouldn’t be as bad as the other thing. 

It might even have worked, if Anna hadn’t decided to _help_. “He’s illegitimate,” she blurted out. 

Everyone looked at her. “Is he?” O’Brien asked. “What’s all that about your father the clockmaker?”

“He was my step-father,” Thomas said shortly. He shouldn’t have; saying anything only gave O’Brien the chance to make it plainer than she already had that it was a different matter she’d been referring to. “And it really isn’t a subject for the dinner table.” 

“My,” O’Brien said. “Aren’t you just a Chinese puzzle box of dark secrets?” When all attention was returned to her, she added, “Not that the other one _is_ much of a secret, anymore. Except from Corporal Rawlins, apparently.”

Rawlins looked at him. Thomas took a deep breath. He was tempted to storm out, but it wasn’t as though he could go far, or anywhere Rawlins wouldn’t think to look for him. “Can we talk about it later?” he snapped.

“Sure,” Rawlins said, eyeing him warily. Carson and Mrs. Hughes came in about then, and not even O’Brien would keep picking at this subject in front of _them_ , so that was all right—except that Rawlins would, in fact, expect him to talk about it later. 

Thomas spent most of the meal pushing his food around on his plate, trying to think of some way out of that conversation. Either to avoid it, or some lie he could tell. But whatever it was would have to be pretty damning—and if O’Brien caught wind of whatever it was, she’d find a way to make plain that _that_ wasn’t what she’d meant, either. He could flat-out refuse to say, but one of the others was bound to tell him. O’Brien herself, if the rest of them managed to control themselves. 

As the meal ended and they began going off to their various duties, O’Brien said to no one in particular, “Oh, dear, I hope I haven’t caused a _rift_ between Sergeant Barrow and Corporal Rawlins. After they’ve been so close.”

She wasn’t fooling anyone, of course, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that, if there had ever been any hair’s-breadth of a chance that Rawlins would forget about her insinuations, or decide not to pursue them, he wouldn’t now. 

#

“That was vile,” Mr. Bates said, sounding angrier than Anna had ever heard him. He had Miss O’Brien cornered at the foot of the stairs, and Anna hovered a short distance away, not sure whether she ought to stop Mr. Bates or join him. 

Miss O’Brien drew herself up. “How was I to guess he didn’t know?”

“Come off it,” Mr. Bates said. “No one buys what you’re peddling.”

“All right, then,” she said, unconcerned—or at least doing an excellent job of pretending she was. “Perhaps I thought the poor man had a right to know.” 

“No one believes that, either.” 

“Believe what you like.” She smirked. “There’s nothing you can do about it.”

She was right. Just as they all knew Thomas was…like he was, they all knew what Miss O’Brien was like—with the possible exception of her ladyship, at least. But being spiteful and vindictive wasn’t a crime, nor was it even something they could report to her ladyship. Particularly not given the subject about which Miss O’Brien had chosen to be spiteful. 

“I’m watching you,” Mr. Bates warned.

“Watch what you like, as well,” Miss O’Brien said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve work to do in her ladyship’s dressing room.”

With obvious reluctance, Mr. Bates stood aside just enough to let Miss O’Brien pass. Once she’d disappeared up the stairs, he asked Anna, “Where’s Thomas gone?”

“He’s outside, with Corporal Rawlins.”

“Is he _telling_ him?” Mr. Bates asked.

“How should I know?” Anna asked back. “I don’t see what choice he has.” Miss O’Brien had trapped him very neatly.

“Nor do I,” Mr. Bates admitted. Glancing to either side, he asked, “What was that about him being illegitimate?”

“He told me a while ago,” she said. “Mrs. Hughes knows, too. I shouldn’t have mentioned it, I just thought…I’m not sure what I was thinking, really.”

#

“So,” Rawlins said, once he and Barrow were sitting on two crates, half-facing one another. It was a pleasant, warm evening, but he found himself thinking of sitting on the barracks steps in their greatcoats, the winter they’d spent at the Casualty Clearing Station. “You really are…?” Barrow nodded curtly. “I suppose ‘Magnificent Bastard’ was a bit, uh….” Bit what, Rawlins wasn’t sure. “I wouldn’t have said it, if I’d known.”

“No,” Barrow said. “ _That’s_ all right. I thought it was funny, really. Besides, I’m not, technically…it’s a bit complicated. My mother was married when I was _born_ , but not when I was….” He gestured vaguely.

“Oh,” Rawlins said, relieved. “That’s nothing too unusual. What is it they say? The first one comes any time, but after that they take nine months.”

Barrow opened his mouth, but took a pull from his cigarette instead of speaking. Once he’d blown out the smoke, he said, “Well, but it was a different bloke, was the problem. And he could _count_ , so….” He shook his head. “He let everybody else think it was that sort of thing, but he knew differently.”

“Oh,” Rawlins said again. Perhaps _that_ was something Rouse would have understood better. The only things he could imagine a husband doing in that situation were either to cast his erring wife aside, or—if he decided not to weather the scandal of divorce—take the knowledge to his grave. That Barrow _knew_ meant that his…step-father…had done something else, but Rawlins wasn’t entirely sure what that would have been. 

“Yeah,” Barrow said. “Not exactly a storybook childhood, but it could’ve been worse. Look at Ethel’s poor brat. Least I had a name.”

Things rearranged themselves inside Rawlins’s head. “So your half-brother, Fitzroy…he was on your real father’s side?” Rawlins had assumed one or the other’s father had died, and their mother remarried—except from the little Barrow said about him, he got the impression they hadn’t known each other until they’d gone to work at the same house, that Lady Water-whatsit. 

Barrow took a long pull from his cigarette, and then another. After the smoke from the second had dissipated, he said, “No.” He took a deep breath. “He weren’t my brother at all.”

He said it heavily, like it meant something more than he was saying, but Rawlins wasn’t sure what. Could it be the secret that Miss O’Brien had been hinting at? Rawlins wasn’t sure _why_ someone would say a chap was his brother when he wasn’t, but it didn’t seem…well, it didn’t seem nearly _bad_ enough, for how everyone else had reacted like she’d dropped a Mills bomb in the middle of the table. “What was he, then?”

This time, Barrow took three pulls from his cigarette, stamped it out, and lit another before answering. “My lover.”

Fitzroy had been a girl? No, that couldn’t be right—Rouse had known him, had known him in the _Army_ , and this was modern times; a girl couldn’t lie her way into the Army in her brother’s clothes when you had to be examined by a doctor first. So how could Fitzroy possibly have been—

Oh. Oh. 

No, it couldn’t be. “You mean you’re….”

Barrow looked away. “As a fucking corkscrew, yeah.” 

“That’s….” Rawlins wasn’t sure how to finish that sentence. _Impossible_? It wasn’t likely Barrow would be saying it, if it weren’t true. _Disgusting_? Maybe. _Illegal_? Definitely, but Barrow had to already know that. 

“Yeah,” Barrow said, standing up. “I’ll just….” 

And then he went inside, slamming the door behind him.

#

Thomas felt a moment’s idiotic hope when Rawlins turned up in his office, a little while after he’d left him in the courtyard. “Er,” he said. “Do you still want me to cover…?”

Of course. He was only here because Thomas had put him on duty. “No,” he said. 

“Are you sure? Because I—?”

“Just go,” Thomas said. “Corporal.”

Rawlins braced up, said “Sergeant,” and left. 

It was just as well to have gotten that over with, Thomas thought. They both had to go on working here—for a bit, at least. Next time they did the duty roster, he could get Sister Crawley to put Rawlins down at the hospital instead. Say the walk was too much for him, with his leg, or something. 

That is, if Rawlins had the sense—or the decency—to keep his mouth shut. Had O’Brien known what she was doing, maneuvering him into admitting it? A confession from his own mouth, to a fellow NCO, made his position with the Army much more precarious. A mere rumor, he could deny, but he couldn’t tell their commanding officer Rawlins was _lying_. 

Well, he _could_. Wouldn’t, though. So he just had to hope that making clear he understood their friendship was at an end would be enough for Rawlins to let the matter drop. 

But of course there was no way to know whether it would or not, and nothing— _nothing_ —he could do to ensure that outcome, so it was another sleepless night in his office. Thomas was almost _nostalgic_ for last night, when it had been someone else’s problem keeping him awake.

At least, until the telephone rang, its shrill voice cracking the night wide-open. Thomas’s first thought, as he hurried to the front hall to answer it before it woke all the patients up, was _Police!_ , but of course they didn’t ring you up to say they were on their way to arrest you. 

His second thought, when it was Mr. Molesley on the other end, was _Ethel_. But that wasn’t it, either. 

“Mrs. Crawley’s had a telegram,” he said, and Thomas knew what _that_ portended, even before he added, “From the War Office.”

Thomas remembered her saying, about comforting the wounded and dying, _I just think of my son_. “What does she need?”

“Well, I,” Mr. Molesley said. “I’m not sure, really. I thought his lordship ought to know, and perhaps some of the family, the ladies, might be with her. She’s bearing up all right, so far, but….”

“Right,” Thomas said, grimly. If it was the family he wanted, that meant waking Mr. Carson. He wouldn’t be happy about it, but he wouldn’t be happy about Thomas doing anything _else_ , either. “I’ll have them woken up and told. You’re telephoning from the hospital, I expect?”

“Yes,” he said. “Shall I stay here for one of them to ring back? I suppose I should, but I might be needed at the house. Especially if some of the family are coming down. I just don’t know—”

Thomas broke in on his dithering. “Tell one of the night duty orderlies what’s happened, and that Sergeant Barrow says they’re to take a message to Sister Crawley’s house if someone rings back for her. All right?”

“Yes,” Mr. Molesley said, sounding relieved. “Yes, that’s sensible. I’ll just—”

Thomas hung up the instrument. By now, Prentiss had appeared. Thomas gave him a quick précis of the situation—he knew the Ward-Sister, too—and said, “If any of the patients ask what’s going on, it’s a family emergency. Some of the family will be coming down, I think, but I’ll see what I can do about keeping them quiet.” Not that he’d actually be able to do much, but he’d try.

Carson reacted about as well as one would expect to Thomas appearing in his bedroom in the middle of the night. “What the devil are you—”

“Mr. Matthew’s dead,” he said. 

Carson sat bolt upright. “What? Are you certain?”

Of course he was—oh. “Actually, Mr. Molesley didn’t say. Mrs. Crawley’s had a telegram—I suppose it could be that he’s wounded, or captured, now you mention it.”

Carson levered himself out of bed, a vision in pink-striped pyjamas, and Thomas averted his eyes as he reached for his dressing-gown. “His lordship will have to be told.”

“Yes,” Thomas said. “That’s why Mr. Molesley telephoned. And he thinks it might be best for Mrs. Crawley to have another lady with her. Only when you wake them, please remind them there’s a lot of people sleeping on the ground floor.”

“Hmph!” Carson glared, eyebrows drawn together. 

“It won’t help to have a lot of strangers wandering about asking what’s going on,” Thomas pointed out. 

Going back downstairs, he wanted to retreat to his office, but decided he had better stay by the telephone, at least until somebody else came down. He couldn’t think of any particular reason for Mr. Molesley to ring back, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t. 

So Thomas was standing there, in the front hall, when his lordship came down, also in pyjamas and dressing gown. “Is this true?” he demanded.

 _No, I just thought it would be funny to wake everyone up_. “Mr. Molesley rang and said that Mrs. Crawley’d had a telegram from the War Office, sir,” he said. “That’s all I know.”

“Yes, yes, of course. He didn’t say, whether…?”

“No, sir. Unfortunately, I didn’t think to ask.” By now, the ladies were starting to come down the stairs as well, in their nightgowns and dressing-gowns, so Thomas quickly explained the instructions he’d left about taking a message from the hospital to Crawley House, and withdrew.

Unsurprisingly, the servants were similarly gathering on the landing behind the baize door. Carson would have had to wake at least one of them—Mrs. Hughes or O’Brien—to go into the bedroom shared by Lord and Lady Grantham and wake them. And once the two of them were up, everybody else would be, too. 

“What’s happening?” someone asked. 

“Is he dead?” someone else added. 

“What about William?” 

That was Daisy. Thomas looked at her sharply. He hadn’t thought of that. “I don’t know,” he said, answering all of them. “All I know is what Mr. Molesley said, that she’s had a telegram.”

“From the War Office?” Daisy asked.

“Obviously.” 

Thomas’s declaration of ignorance, of course, did not stop them from peppering him with questions, and after saying “I don’t know” a few more times, he decided to go to his office. That meant crossing the main hall, though, and before he was halfway across, Colonel Grantham said, “Sergeant.”

Damn. “Sir?”

“Go and tell Branson to bring the car around, please,” he said. He held up one hand. “I realize I shouldn’t ask you, but I don’t want to wait for one of the others to get dressed.”

“Yes, sir,” Thomas said. 

His lordship was probably wise not to introduce any further delay into the process, because waking Branson required quite a lot of pounding on the carriage-house door. He was contemplating getting some gravel from the drive to toss at what he took to be the bedroom window when a different window banged open, and Branson’s head emerged. “ _What_?” he demanded. 

“They need the car,” Thomas shouted up to him. Branson looked about as happy as Thomas would be, to be awoken in the middle of the night because the family wanted to go for a drive, so he added, “It’s an emergency.” 

Branson banged the window shut again, and a few moments later emerged from the front door, buttoning his shirt. “What kind of emergency?”

So Thomas explained again about the telegram. About halfway through his explanation, Branson retreated inside, gesturing for Thomas to follow him. By the time he’d concluded with, “I don’t know what it said, whether he’s dead or something else,” Branson had finished with his shirt, pulled on one of those stupid knee-boots they made him wear, and was working on the other.

“If nobody’s dying this minute, I’d better get my coat and tie,” Branson decided. He bounded up the stairs, returning a moment later with his jacket on, knotting his tie around his neck as he went. “Did they say which car?” he asked. “Or who’s going, and where?”

“No,” Thomas said. “To Mrs. Crawley’s house, I should think. Or perhaps you’re fetching her here.”

Back at the house, Prentiss was dealing with a number of patients who, woken either by the telephone or the hubbub from the hall—or, increasingly, by their fellow-patients, who’d been woken by one of the former—now needed something before they could go back to sleep. 

By the time they were all settled down again, some of the family had left, and the rest decamped to the small library, where Thomas could not intrude. He went downstairs instead, and found most of the others gathered in the servants’ hall, still in their nightclothes. Only Carson and Anna were absent. “Any news?” he asked. 

“No,” said Mrs. Hughes. “But here, have a cup of tea,” she added, pouring one.

Most of the women—even O’Brien—were gathered around Daisy, comforting her. Thomas, for lack of a better option, sat with Bates. He considered pointing out that there was no particular reason to think that whatever had happened to Mr. Matthew had also happened to William, but it seemed like one of those things that would make them all glare at him and say _Thomas!_ , even though it was both true and relatively comforting, while the things the women were saying to her met only, at most, one of those qualifications. 

A little while later, Anna joined the flock of women, reporting, “Lady Edith says she’ll drive up to Mr. Mason’s in the morning, and find out if he’s…had a telegram, too.” 

“Good,” Daisy said. “He shouldn’t be alone, if he has.” 

For perhaps another quarter of an hour, they chewed over what little information they had—which consisted mostly of listing the reasons the War Office might send a telegram, and giving examples of people they knew who had gotten telegrams for reasons other than that the person was dead. 

A typical example went something like, “My sister’s neighbor’s cousin’s butcher’s wife got one, middle of the night, she nearly died of fright, but her boy had only been wounded. He’s home safe and sound now—well, not sound, perhaps, he’s lost both his legs, but he’s alive, and isn’t that the main thing?”

 _I got one_ , Thomas thought. _And it said that Peter was dead_. _Missing and presumed, they call it._

Finally, Branson came in. “I thought you’d all like to know—he’s not dead.” After the cries of joy and sighs of relief, he went on, “Gravely wounded, is what the telegram said. They’re sending him to our hospital here.” 

“What does that mean?” Mrs. Patmore asked. “Gravely wounded?”

“That’s all it said,” Branson said, glancing over at Thomas.

“It means what it sounds like,” Thomas said. 

“Well, yes,” Mrs. Patmore said, “but, missing limbs, or…does it mean ‘e’s about to go in a grave, or what?”

“I don’t know.” It came out sharper than Thomas intended, and he sighed. “That they’re sending him here, means…whatever it is, they don’t think moving him will make it worse.” He hoped he didn’t have to spell out for them that there were two ways that could be the case: either he was in stable condition, or he was expected to die no matter what. That they’d arranged to send him to the hospital where his mother was Ward Sister, specifically, made Thomas suspect the latter—but it could also be a perk of his being the presumed-future-Earl of Grantham. 

Glances went around the table. 

Branson added, “Anna, Lady Mary and Lady Sybil are stopping the night at Mrs. Crawley’s house. They said they have what they need for now; they’ll send word in the morning if they want you to take them anything.” Anna nodded, and he continued, to Mr. Bates, “His lordship has come back, so he can start telephoning the War Office in the morning. He didn’t say whether he was going back to bed or not.” 

“The rest of us should,” Mrs. Hughes said, standing up. “Daisy, whatever news may come, you’ll face it better for having a bit of rest.”

So the rest of them wandered off to bed, and Thomas retreated to his office, after telling Prentiss the news. Lying down on the stretcher-bed, he allowed himself to think that, with _this_ happening, the last thing Rawlins would want to do was get Thomas in trouble, and add to Sister Crawley’s burdens.

#

“It’s terrible, about Sister Crawley’s son,” Corporal Rawlins said.

“Yes, it is,” Anna agreed. She knew that wasn’t what he’d come to talk to her about, though—if it was, he could have said it in the servants’ hall, instead of asking her if they could talk and dragging her outside. “Has there been any more news about his condition?”

Corporal Rawlins shook his head. “He’ll be with the convoy that’s coming tomorrow, but they don’t tell us anything about what kind of shape they’re in.” He hesitated. “It’s…unlikely to be good, given what was said in the telegram.”

“Thomas said the same,” Anna said, and watched Corporal Rawlins’s jaw tighten at the sound of his friend’s name. 

Glancing at her out of the corner of his eye, Corporal Rawlins said, “I suppose it’s…true, what he told me. Hardly the sort of thing a chap would say if it wasn’t.”

“I don’t know precisely what he told you,” Anna pointed out. “But yes, probably.” She wouldn’t entirely put it past Thomas to have made up some other scandalous secret, but she didn’t think it was likely, either.

“About him being...not normal,” Corporal Rawlins said. “And his brother, Fitzroy….”

“They aren’t actually related,” Anna said, wondering if Thomas might have left him with the impression he was engaging in incest, along with the rest of it.

“Yes,” Corporal Rawlins said flatly. “That.” 

For a long moment, neither of them said anything. For an instant, Anna wished she smoked—it always seemed to give Thomas something to do during uncomfortable moments. Finally, she said what she knew Thomas would ask about, if he found out Anna had talked to Rawlins about…him. “I hope you aren’t going to make trouble for him. Miss O’Brien only brought it up to…make trouble for him, and he doesn’t deserve it.” He hadn’t, even when he was being nothing but nasty to everyone, and he certainly didn’t now.

“No,” Corporal Rawlins said. “No, I wouldn’t do that. It’s just…bit of a shock.” He looked away, reaching for his pocket. Then, “Sorry, do you mind if I smoke?”

“Go ahead,” she said. Corporal Rawlins took out a pipe and began the process of filling and tamping it. As a thing to do with your hands in an awkward moment, it seemed even better than cigarettes, but Anna had never seen him smoke a pipe before. 

Pipe finally lit, and puffing away at it, Corporal Rawlins said, “I don’t suppose he thought….” He shook his head. “I mean, he couldn’t have.”

Guessing what he meant, Anna said, “He knew you weren’t…like that.” He didn’t need to know that the _rest_ of them had thought he might be. 

“Good,” he said. “Because I don’t…I mean, at—” He cut himself off. “Rum thing to be talking about with a lady.”

“I’m not exactly a lady,” Anna pointed out. 

“You know what I mean,” he said, and she did. He went on, “Then I suppose he and that Ethel person weren’t….”

“No.” Anna had wondered if Thomas even realized that it could look that way, to someone who didn’t know about…him. “I think he’s taken an interest because of…how he was born.” That, and experience of being treated shabbily by men above his station, but that was another thing that didn’t need saying. “But there’s no question of him being…responsible, in an ordinary sense.”

“Oh, I didn’t think _that_ ,” Corporal Rawlins said quickly. “I’m sure he’d have married her, if there was any chance—” He stopped, frowning. “Well, I _was_ sure, but I suppose I don’t know him as well as I thought I did.”

“I think you know him as well as anyone,” Anna said. “It’s…sort of an accident, that the rest of us know about…that. I mean, he didn’t _tell_ us.” Corporal Rawlins didn’t say anything to that, and after a moment, she went on, “And I expect you’re right, that if he…was, he would have. He was ready to make Private Griffiths marry her, if there was any chance _he_ was.” 

Corpora Rawlins made a barking sort of laugh. “You know, I always sort of liked that he wasn’t as…coarse, about girls, as some of the other chaps could be. In France, I mean.”

Now it was Anna’s turn not to know what to say. Of course, it would be obvious to him now why Thomas hadn’t been. 

“You really all knew?” he asked skeptically. “And you don’t mind?”

Anna considered explaining that _most_ of them didn’t mind, but it didn’t seem wise to draw Corporal Rawlins’s attention to those that did. Instead, she said, “It’s made his life very difficult, in some ways. It isn’t something he’d choose.”

“No. No, I suppose he wouldn’t.” He stood up. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll…walk for a bit. I have some things to think about.”

“Of course,” Anna said. 

As she went back inside and took up her sewing, she hoped Corporal Rawlins’s thoughts would lead him to the right conclusion.

#

“Did anyone tell you, about that chap that used to work here?” Rawlins was standing by the linen shelves, a few yards from Thomas’s desk. It might as well have been miles.

“No,” he said. “I’ve been busy.” He’d been hiding, is what he’d been doing. Anywhere upstairs, and he might run into Rawlins, and anywhere downstairs, Anna or Mrs. Hughes. His office was the only safe place, except that now Rawlins was here. 

“He was wounded, too,” Rawlins said. “Pretty badly, it sounds like. They were talking about it downstairs,” he added, in explanation. 

“That’s a shame,” Thomas said cautiously. If yesterday hadn’t happened, he might have said, _I’m not glad to hear it, even though I never liked him_. 

“He’s being sent to the big hospital in Leeds, but they want to bring him here,” Rawlins continued. 

_Wonder how Major Clarkson’ll get out of that?_ He might have said. “Yeah?”

“Apparently the ‘old lady’ has taken an interest?”

“The Dowager Countess,” Thomas said. That answered _that_ question—Clarkson _wouldn’t_ be getting out of it. _She goes in for that_ noblesse oblige _shit, sometimes_ , he didn’t say. 

“Right,” Rawlins said, shifting a little from one foot to the other. “I’ll just…let you get back to it, then.”

“Right,” Thomas echoed.

After Rawlins had left, he lit a cigarette, and tried to convince himself that what had just happened was a good thing. It was, really. It wasn’t at all likely Rawlins would go from filling him in on house gossip to denouncing him to Major Clarkson, or even to the rest of the lads. And it wasn’t something he _had_ to tell Thomas about, strictly speaking, for their jobs. They were going to be…cordial; that’s what Rawlins was saying. 

It certainly beat the alternative.

#

Anna was a little surprised when Corporal Rawlins joined them again for dinner that night. She supposed they all were, though no one remarked on it. He sat beside Anna, in Mr. Bates’s usual place, so that she was between him and Thomas. They spoke to one another just enough to make plain that they weren’t ignoring one another, but there was—needless to say—none of the usual teasing and shoving and arm-punching. 

Any time Anna happened to look Miss O’Brien’s way, she was wearing a slight, self-satisfied smirk. 

Thomas and Corporal Rawlins’s falling-out would have been enough on its own to cast a pall, but with the news of William and Mr. Matthew on top of it, the atmosphere was downright dismal. Everyone spoke in hushed tones, and the only topic, apart from work, was William and Mr. Matthew. And there wasn’t very much to say about them, since the last real news—about the Dowager Countess’s determination to bring William to the village—had come in mid-afternoon, and had thus had time to make it the whole way around the house, twice. 

It was a relief, really, when the meal finally ended. Corporal Rawlins left almost as soon as Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes had gone out, saying, “Right—best get back to it.” Thomas stayed, lighting a cigarette as soon as Miss O’Brien had left. “He’s on call tonight,” he said abruptly.

“What?”

“That’s why he’s here.”

Oh. Corporal Rawlins, he meant. “I see.” 

“Yeah.” 

If he’d gone to the courtyard to smoke, Anna would have gone with him, and tried to talk to him about…things. But in here, even with Miss O’Brien gone, there was no hope of that. 

Perhaps that was why he _hadn’t_ gone outside. 

After a moment, he said, “What ever happened with Ethel?”

So much had happened since yesterday morning, that Anna had nearly forgotten about Ethel’s return—she’d only caught sight of her briefly, as she’d been leaving, and Mrs. Hughes had given her only the barest outline of the story. “She went with Mrs. Crawley,” she said. 

“Back to the—” Thomas glanced down the table, where some of the maids and a hall-boy were sitting. “Place?”

“To Crawley House, for now, I think.” One thing Mrs. Hughes _had_ said was that Ethel was adamant about not giving up the baby. “I think Mrs. Crawley means to…keep trying to persuade her. Or meant to,” she added. Mrs. Crawley doubtless had other things on her mind now. “I don’t know what will happen now.”

“Long as she doesn’t turn up here again in the middle of the night,” Thomas said. “Daft cow.”

Anna decided to ignore that. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“Sure,” he said, unconvincingly. “Why wouldn’t I be?” He stood up, stubbing his cigarette out as he did so. “I’m off to bed—anything happens in the small hours tonight, I’d just as soon find out in the morning.”

#

They did, for a change, manage to get through the night without any further surprises—though one did come that afternoon, when an ambulance pulled up in front of the house and disgorged William, laid out on a stretcher and looking half-dead. The ambulance was accompanied by one of the family cars, driven by Lady Edith and carrying the Dowager and an old gaffer Thomas supposed must be William’s Dad, so clearly its arrival wasn’t a surprise to everyone—though why no one had thought the _Wardmaster of the convalescent home_ ought to know about a new patient, Thomas put aside as a question for a later date. 

The ambulance men, at Lady Edith’s direction, carried William upstairs and installed him in one of the bedrooms set aside for family guests. Thomas managed to catch them on their way back down, and get a précis of William’s condition—about as grim as expected. He’d been blown up—caught by the edges of a shell-strike, that was, and thrown into the air. A bloke _could_ walk away from one of those, but depending on how he landed, could end up with massive internal injuries. William was bleeding into his lungs, and it was only a matter of time until he drowned in his own blood. 

“Surprised they sent him back to Blighty, really,” the Corporal from the ambulance said. He glanced up the grand staircase they’d just come down. “Unless he’s somebody.”

“Hardly,” Thomas said. “Somebody’s servant, that’s all.”

Lady Edith came down the stairs about then, and the ambulance men made themselves scarce. “Sergeant,” she said. “We’ve put William in the Primrose Room.”

“Yes, my lady,” Thomas said, because he had to. “I do wish someone had thought to inform me he was coming. We aren’t really set up for a deathwatch here.”

He wasn’t sure whether to be disappointed or impressed that she didn’t flinch at the unvarnished description of what was taking place. “It won’t add to your workload,” she said. “Lady Sybil and I will look after him.”

Thomas considered whether he could get away with pointing out that _Nurse Crawley_ had other duties to attend to—duties that someone else would have to undertake, if she chose to attend to William instead. Or that she’d already skived off that morning to be at the hospital with Lady Mary when Captain Crawley arrived. Reluctantly, he concluded that he could not. “Very good of you, my lady.” 

She smiled tightly. “In any case, it won’t be for more than two or three days. I hope it isn’t a problem if we borrow what we need from the convalescent home supplies. We’ll keep track of anything that’s used up, so that we can reimburse the Army for it.”

Blimey, Major Clarkson must have said a mouthful on the irregularity of this situation. “Yes, my lady. Nurse Crawley knows where everything is.” He hesitated. “We have to be especially careful in accounting for the stronger drugs—the ones kept in the locked cabinet.” Some of the officers resisted going off morphine as they recovered, and orders from on high were becoming increasingly firm on the subject of not giving it to them. “It would be best if we had some orders from Major Clarkson before whatever they gave him for the journey wears off.” Thomas hoped she’d take the hint that _he_ didn’t want to be the one asking for those orders, not when all signs pointed to the Major already being in a lather. 

She nodded. “I see. Yes, I’ll speak to him.” 

Thomas expected that the edge would have gone off Major Clarkson’s anger by the time afternoon rounds came along, but it turned out he’d misread the situation. Lady Edith buttonholed the Major as soon as he arrived, and while they were standing too far away from Thomas for him to hear what was being said, he saw Major’s Clarkson’s back getting stiffer and stiffer as the conversation went on. 

They parted with Lady Edith saying something sharp and sweeping off. It was plain enough that Major Clarkson had just been handed some shit, and Thomas was standing directly downhill. “Sergeant!” he barked. Thomas presented himself. “At what point,” the Major said tightly, “did you plan to inform me that Private Mason had been brought here against my orders?”

“Sir,” Thomas said, stalling for time. He knew perfectly well that Major Clarkson was not looking for an answer, or interested in hearing him defend himself. But he’d be damned before he’d take the blame for something he’d had nothing to do with. “I didn’t know anything about it until Lady Edith arrived with the ambulance.” 

“And why didn’t you?” Clarkson demanded. 

_Because it’s their bloody house, and they don’t ask me before they decide what they’re going to do with it_. “Sir.”

Major Clarkson huffed and shook his head. “I don’t suppose it occurred to them that either of us might have a reason to know.”

“Yes, sir.” He seemed to have worked out that Thomas was not the one he ought to be angry at, so Thomas ventured, “I formed the impression, from what Lady Edith said, that he’d been brought here over your objections, but I didn’t realize it was also without your knowledge, sir.”

“Why should they?” Major Clarkson asked bitterly. “ _Lady Edith_ is going to nurse him. I’m sure she’ll know just what to do when he begins coughing up blood, or raving, or…evacuates his bowels.”

Thomas hesitated over whether to tell him or not, but since this had started with him getting a bollocking for not keeping the Major informed, he said, “I gather she’s anticipating Nurse Crawley’s assistance with the difficult bits.”

He scoffed. “Of course she is.” He gave Thomas an apologetic look. “You’ll have to manage; you know that.”

“Yes, sir. Shouldn’t be more than a couple of days.”

Clarkson sighed. “I do feel for the boy, of course. And his father. But they’re far from being the only family in the same situation.”

“Yes, sir.” 

“All right. I suppose we’ll start with him, and then come back down and go through the wards as usual.”

William looked…small, lying in the big brass bed of the Primrose Room. There was barely a mark on him—just the sort of bumps and scrapes a kid could pick up in the schoolyard—but Thomas could hear from across the room how bad his breathing was. 

What was really hard to take, though, was the way the old gaffer, Mr. Mason, watched their every move as they sat him up so that Major Clarkson could listen with his stethoscope, and then smoothed the blankets over him after. 

Thomas, for reasons he couldn’t name, suddenly remembered the Wardmaster holding a cigarette to his lips, when he’d been lying in the ward at the 47th. 

“He ent so good, is he, sir?” Mr. Mason asked. 

“No,” Major Clarkson said gently. “I’m afraid he is not.”

Mason breathed in hard through his nose. “I heard the ambulance men say—” Here he glanced over at Thomas. “I don’t think they meant for me to hear, so don’t think badly of ‘em. They said he were a goner.”

Major Clarkson pressed his lips together. “I’m sorry you heard it in that way. And even sorrier that….”

“That they were right,” Mr. Mason said. 

“We’ll keep him as comfortable as we can,” Major Clarkson said, and gave some orders regarding morphine and other things, which Thomas wrote down on the chart and held for him to sign. 

Lady Edith met them in the corridor outside the room, and Major Clarkson repeated his instructions, in less technical form. She nodded alertly after each one. When he’d finished, she asked, “Do you have an idea of…how long?”

“Days,” Major Clarkson said. “And not very many of them.”

“His father…wasn’t sure if he should go back to the farm tonight, and return in the morning, or....” She trailed off. “There’s stock that needs tending to, apparently.”

Major Clarkson nodded. “I can’t be certain, of course, but I’d wager on him lasting the night. Further than that, I wouldn’t venture to say.”

As they went downstairs, Thomas asked, “Is there any news about Captain Crawley, sir?” The others were bound to interrogate him on that subject, as well as about William, at dinner. And the more he had to say about it, the less opportunity anyone would have to ask him about anything _else_.

His prediction proved correct. The mood around the dinner table was, oddly enough, less grim than the night before, despite the death-bed upstairs—perhaps because there _was_ , at least, new information to talk about. “He came on the convoy this afternoon, and doesn’t seem any worse than they expected,” Thomas reported once they’d all sat down—Rawlins now _two_ places away from him, beyond Anna and Bates. “He isn’t conscious, but they give them a great deal of pain medication when they transport them, so that isn’t alarming. And that’ll be the same for William,” he added to Daisy. “I wouldn’t expect either of them to come round before morning.” 

Anna spoke up. “Lady Mary said that the…card thingy they put on Mr. Matthew said ‘probable spinal damage.’” 

That was what Major Clarkson had said. Thomas nodded. “There isn’t much room for details, on the tally-cards, and they haven’t taken x-rays yet.”

“But what does it mean, ‘probable spinal damage’?” Mrs. Patmore asked. She and Daisy had finished bringing out the food, but lingered for the news. “Is he paralyzed?”

“That’s just what they’re not sure of,” Thomas said. “And if he is, whether it’s permanent or not.”

“I’d have thought,” O’Brien said, “that Dr. Clarkson would do everything he could to answer their questions. Her ladyship and his lordship being such supporters of the hospital.”

“That,” Thomas said, “is because you know nothing.” Anna turned a wide-eyed glance on him, which Thomas ignored. “In Captain Crawley’s case, a complete diagnosis won’t make a difference in his care, at this stage at least. If the spine’s broken, it’ll stay broken, and if it’s just bruised, it’ll get better. Either way, the only thing to do right now is keep him comfortable.”

“He’s right,” Rawlins said, not looking at Thomas. “Of course his people want to know what’s going to happen, but knowing won’t change the outcome. The Medical Officers can only do so much in a day, and they have to start with the cases where there’s something to be done, or a decision to be made, that might affect whether the chap pulls through or not, or whether he’s crippled or not.”

“Well, then,” said Mrs. Hughes. “I’m sure Mr. Matthew wouldn’t _want_ to be given priority, over others who need the doctor’s care more than he does.” With a repressive look at O’Brien, she added, “No more than his lordship and her ladyship would want it for him.” 

Thomas thought she was probably right about Captain Crawley—he was an all right sort—but was less sure about the rest of them. “But when they get to the less-urgent cases, he’ll be at the head of _that_ queue, I’m sure. Him being who he is.”

“As well he should,” Carson declared, as though Thomas had implied otherwise.

After the meal, Rawlins excused himself immediately, as he’d done yesterday, and Thomas lingered, as he’d done yesterday. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem that her ladyship was making an early night of it tonight, so Miss O’Brien stayed, too. Thomas wanted a smoke, but if he went outside, someone was sure to follow him, and up in his office, Rawlins would be getting settled in for the night. He sat, and tried not to fidget. 

In the circumstances, Daisy coming and sitting by him was almost a welcome distraction. “You’ve seen him, then?” she asked, adding, “William,” as if he might not have known who she meant.

“Haven’t you?”

She shook her head. “How does he look?”

Wishing even more ardently for a cigarette, Thomas said, “He looks a lot better than he is. Pale and a bit banged-up, but nothing to frighten you away.”

“It isn’t that,” she said. “His father’s there.” She looked at Thomas as if he ought to understand the significance of this.

“So?”

“William will have told him we’re _engaged_ ,” she said. 

Thomas stared at her. She was still on about _that_? “You do understand,” he said carefully, “that he’s going to die? Within the next few days?”

“That’s just it,” she said. “I can’t lie to him on his deathbed. Or to his old dad.”

“What, you’re going to _jilt_ him on his deathbed, instead?”

“Of course not.”

“What’s the other option?” Thomas asked. “Just avoid him until he dies?”

The guilty look on Daisy’s face suggested she had been planning precisely that. 

“You won’t get away with it,” he said. “Major Clarkson expects him to last at least a day or two.”

“Then what should I do?”

She was asking _him_? “Lie to him on his deathbed,” Thomas said. “Think up some things to say that you can make sound convincing. Put in as much truth as you can—you do _like_ him, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she said. “Just…not that way.”

“Right. So there’s got to be stuff you can say that isn’t a lie, even if he hears it a different way than you meant it.” 

Looking thoughtful, Daisy nodded. “What about his dad? What do I say to him?”

How in God’s name would Thomas know what a father wanted to hear from his dying son’s fiancée? It wasn’t as though _Peter’s_ family would have wanted to hear anything at all from him…although if they did, it would be almost a mirror-image of Daisy’s situation. He’d have had to pretend they’d only been friends, while Daisy was going to have to pretend she’d been in love. “Talk about what you like about William, what you’ll remember about him. Just leave out the bits it won’t do any good for him to hear.” 

About the time Mrs. Patmore started screeching for Daisy to get back in the kitchen, the bells rang for O’Brien and Bates. As Thomas was—finally—lighting up his cigarette, Anna came and sat by him. “That was good advice, what you said to Daisy.”

“Don’t you start,” Thomas said wearily. 

“No, I mean it,” she said. “Sometimes telling the whole truth isn’t the best thing.” 

“I didn’t really have a choice,” he snapped, glaring at the place O’Brien had so recently vacated. 

She sighed. “I wasn’t talking about _that_.”

“Sure you weren’t.” Really, she might not have been, but Thomas was getting very tired of being nice. 

She pressed her lips together. “But speaking of that, we talked, the other day. He isn’t going to… _do_ anything.”

He was probably meant to be _grateful_ she’d talked him out of it, or that she’d gone to the trouble of finding out, or whatever it was she’d done. He felt more like telling her not to bother meddling in his life, but reined in the impulse. “Figured.” 

The next day brought no new crises—thankfully—but plenty of new things to be irritated about. As expected, Nurse Crawley was running off every other minute to help one or the other of her sisters with something relating to William or Captain Crawley. The latter was even _more_ irritating than the former, because Captain Crawley _was_ an official patient at the hospital, which had plenty of nurses of its own—not to mention Captain Crawley’s _actual mum_ —so there was no reason at all for Thomas to be rearranging the duty assignments a dozen times before lunch. 

But he couldn’t say anything to _her_ about it, of course, and when he tried grousing to some of the others, they looked at him like he’d grown another head. Everyone liked Nurse Crawley.

As if that weren’t enough, _Major Bryant_ , of all people, turned up around lunchtime—he was on his way back to France now, after having been on a training course since leaving the convalescent home, and had decided to stop in for a visit with his old pals. No one had seen fit to tell Thomas about _that_ , either, although he gathered Lady Grantham and Lady Edith had known. 

Not that there was anything in particular they had to do—Mrs. Patmore’s lunches for the patients were always the sort of thing that could easily stretch to feed an unexpected guest—but Thomas would have put aside some time for glaring at him in an unfriendly manner, which now had to be fitted into whatever spare moments he could find. At least Mrs. Hughes also seemed to be on the job—when they were clearing the lunch, Thomas saw her making her way toward the Major, with a steely glint in her eye. 

And then—then!—when Thomas poked his head into the kitchen, after making his afternoon check on the sinkroom, Daisy practically _fell_ on him, banging on about William and getting married and something to do with the Dowager Countess. 

He’d only looked in there in hopes of getting something to eat—his appetite always seemed to flee him, when he was sitting down to a meal—and now he earnestly wished he hadn’t. Equally earnestly, he wished someone would come running to inform him of some emergency requiring the Wardmaster’s immediate attention, but when none occurred, he sighed inwardly and herded Daisy to the courtyard, where he could at least have a smoke while she explained…whatever it was she wanted.

“All right,” he said, once they were seated. “What’s this about marrying William?”

“He wants me to marry him.” 

That wasn’t news. Thomas waited.

“ _Now_ ,” she clarified. “Before he…you know. Dies. So I’ll be his widow, and get a pension from the government.”

Looked at from every angle Thomas could devise, this did not seem like a problem. William was going to die; he knew he was going to die. As a widow, she’d be perfectly free to marry someone else, if she wanted, and he was in no shape to consummate the marriage, if that was what she was worried about. Though now that he thought about it— “He can’t,” Thomas pointed out. “He isn’t going to live long enough for the banns to be read.” He had a vague idea there were ways around that, but William was in no shape to be running off to Gretna Green, either. 

“That’s just it,” Daisy wailed. “The Dowager is going to make the vicar do it!” 

Oh. Well, then, it had to be the consummation she was carrying on about, didn’t it? “Look, if you’re worried about…there isn’t going to be a wedding night. He isn’t well enough.” 

Daisy stared at him. “I didn’t even think about _that_.” She looked over her shoulder, toward the kitchen. “Do they all know that he isn’t well enough? Do they think that I’m going to….”

 _I have no idea; this is the first I’m hearing of any of this_. “Then what is it, exactly, that’s the problem?”

“I can’t! Not when I don’t love him, like that. It was bad enough lying to him. I can’t lie to _God_.”

Would she really have to? Thomas tried to remember what the vows actually said. _For as long as you both shall live_ , no problem there, when one of them was going to be dead in a day or two. _Forsaking all others_ , also not a problem. The bit about sickness and health was a bit of a joke, in the circumstances, but William had the sickness part covered, and Daisy the health. _For richer, for poorer_ was pretty much the point of the exercise—and it occurred to Thomas that precisely what Daisy was objecting to would have fixed everything, for Ethel, a few weeks ago. Ethel’d probably _kill_ to be a respectable widow with a pension.

For that matter, Thomas wouldn’t have sneezed at it, either. He thought about Peter’s Post Office account, put into Thomas’s name so that he’d have it, if—

If what had happened, did. It was, Thomas thought, brutally unfair. Perhaps not as bad as when William had turned up, safe and well, back from the dead. But Thomas would give a lot, to have seen Peter one last time before he died. He’d have given even more to face that moment having just told the world what they were to each other. 

Suddenly, he ran out of patience for Daisy’s dithering. “You know what?” he said. “Marry him or don’t. I don’t care.”

Daisy drew back, startled. “I just thought—”

“No,” Thomas said, “you didn’t. Because if you thought about it, you’d realize I’m the last person in the world,” or second-last, counting Ethel, “who’s going to sympathize with you. You get to be William’s widow; Peter doesn’t even have a fucking _grave_.”

“But that’s—” She broke off. “I’m sorry.”

“Sure,” he said, taking a quick drag from his cigarette. “Go away.”

“I didn’t mean to—”

“Fine. Go.”

She went. 

#

“Mrs. Hughes, the very last thing I’d wish to be is rude,” Major Bryant said, “but in this case, I really must be left to my own devices.” 

Damn and blast the man. When she’d heard of his visit, Mrs. Hughes had decided—against her better judgment—to try one more time to accept his responsibilities. Now that Ethel was…well, no longer settled, it seemed even more urgent, and she _did_ have some slight hope that the news that he had a son would make a difference. It oughtn’t, but men did often feel differently about sons than they did about daughters, and that was a fact.

No sooner had she returned downstairs than Daisy came hurrying in from the courtyard. “Oh, Mrs. Hughes,” she said, looking relieved at the sight of her. “Thomas is…upset.”

Before Mrs. Hughes could ask for further clarification, the girl was hurrying off toward the kitchen. 

_Upset_ in regards to Thomas could mean almost anything. Peering out a window, she was relieved to see him sitting on a crate near the door, smoking and occasionally swiping angrily at his eyes. 

Deciding to give him a moment to compose himself, she checked on a few things, and then stepped outside. Thomas, in the act of lighting another cigarette, flinched at the sound of the door opening, and looked up at her balefully. “I suppose,” he said flatly, “Daisy went running to tell you I swore at her.”

“No,” she said, coming down the steps and gingerly taking a seat on another crate, “she said you were upset.”

He scoffed, and looked away. 

“I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me what’s bothering you?” 

“Oh, nothing,” he said, with patently false breeziness. “What on Earth could I possibly be _bothered_ about?”

She ignored the sarcasm and said calmly, “Quite a few things, I should imagine.” 

He hunched his shoulders—well, one of them, anyway. 

She waited.

He smoked.

She waited some more. 

“It isn’t that I’m not _sorry_ William’s going to die. It’s just—” He shook his head. “I don’t know.” Clearly abandoning whatever point he’d been struggling to make, he continued, “But I don’t think I should be the one who has to listen to Daisy carry on about how she doesn’t want to marry William. That’s all.” 

Mrs. Hughes felt her eyebrows rise. “She doesn’t?”

“No. She’s not in love with him.”

She wasn’t sure, either, why Daisy would choose Thomas as a confidante on that subject—unless, perhaps, she was… _like_ him, but no, that didn’t seem likely at all, not when Daisy had fancied herself in love with Thomas, before the war. “I don’t see that it makes much difference at this point,” she said. “Not when the poor boy’s halfway to the grave.”

“That’s what _I_ said. Only she’s carrying on about lying to God and all kind of daft sh—stuff.” 

The girl could be a bit too impressed with her own scruples; that much was certain. “Well, if she feels that way, she ought to have said something sooner, but I don’t see how she can refuse now. Especially not after the Dowager has gone to so much trouble over it.”

Thomas snorted. “Because she’d have been doing something much more valuable with her time, if she hadn’t?”

That bit of lèse-majesté was best ignored, as well—Thomas only said things like that to provoke a reaction. She continued, “I’m sure there are plenty of others who’d be grateful for the chance to marry their sweetheart, even on his deathbed.” She wondered, in fact, if something like that might have been at the root of Thomas’s “upset.” 

If it was, he wasn’t telling. “Or marry anybody,” he said. “If he’d come home to die a few weeks earlier, I’d have said to see if he’d take Ethel instead, but it’s too late for that.”

 _That boy’s mind works in the_ strangest _ways_ , she thought, once she’d untangled what he meant. She could, with an effort, see the logic: a deceased husband would give Ethel’s situation a veneer of respectability, and if one supposed that William was simply eager to marry, and not to marry Daisy specifically, it would be a solution. Except that no one would marry with no regard to whom they were marrying; even in a marriage of convenience, each of the couple had _some_ requirements. “Not that I wish to encourage this line of thinking, but what do you mean about it being too late?”

He glanced at her. “He’d be the baby’s father, if she married before it was born.”

“Not really,” she pointed out—realizing only when she said it that it might be tactless, given his circumstances.

“Legally, yeah. That’s how it works.” 

She did not have to ask how he knew. 

“Widow, with a war orphan—bound to be good for something. But now it’s been born, it’d be a bastard even if she married the actual father, so.” He shrugged. “No point trying to talk him into it.”

There really wouldn’t have been in any case, but she was glad she didn’t have to talk him out of trying. 

#

“Corporal Rawlins,” Mr. Carson said, stepping out of his office just as Rawlins had been about to go up the stairs to the orderlies’ room, after dinner. “I wonder if I might have a word.”

He’d spoken to Rawlins a few times before, about convalescent home matters—which he always only relayed to Barrow, anyway. Barrow had said Carson did it because he disliked Barrow. This time, he rather wished Mr. Carson would just tell Barrow whatever it was directly, because Barrow was barely speaking to him—which was a little rich, in Rawlins’s opinion, given that Barrow was the one with the problem—but he supposed that explaining that would be more time and trouble than just listening to whatever it was. If it wasn’t urgent, he could write Barrow a note. 

“Yes, as long as it’s quick,” he said. “I’m meant to be on duty.”

“Of course.” He gestured for Rawlins to go into his office, and once they were seated, said, “I shan’t beat around the bush. I gather that you’ve been…made aware of…certain unsavory things, regarding Sergeant Barrow.”

Oh, God. Could he possibly claim that he was suddenly too busy to have this conversation, after all? Not really, he concluded reluctantly. “Yes. That is, if you’re referring to…what I think you are.”

“Yes. Well. I hope you understand that any scandal involving him cannot but also involve this house, and Lord and Lady Grantham. I’m sure you’ll agree that that would be a poor thanks for their opening their home to the wounded officers.”

Rawlins hadn’t really thought of it that way, but he grasped what Mr. Carson was hinting at. “I don’t mean to….” He borrowed Anna’s phrasing. “Make trouble for him, if that’s what you’re saying.”

“Good. Apart from the many innocent parties who would be affected by any…unpleasantness, causing a furore would only draw more attention to matters better left unexamined.”

“Yes, sir,” Rawlins said. “I quite agree.” If only Miss O’Brien had left things alone! He’d been perfectly happy not knowing. 

Mr. Carson nodded. “I’m pleased to hear that,” he said. “It’s quite natural and right that you should find this…disclosure repellent, of course.”

 _Repellent_ was a stronger word than Rawlins would have chosen. Plenty of chaps at school had…done things, which Rawlins didn’t really see the point of, but the things they did didn’t really seem _that_ much more undignified and off-putting than the ones that, apparently, constituted a normal married life. And while there was a substantial difference between _doing_ those things and being…one of those, he supposed Anna was right that Barrow wouldn’t have chosen it. “Distasteful, perhaps,” he suggested.

“Indeed.” He settled back in his chair, his tone taking a turn for the avuncular. “You see, I quite understand how shocking this must be. In my youth—when I was about your age, in fact—I learned a similar…fact about a fellow I worked with, and whom I had considered a friend.”

Mr. Carson was, frankly, the last person he’d have thought to turn to for advice in this situation—or any other; he was widely disliked by all of the orderlies—but if he had, in fact, experienced the same thing, perhaps he’d have something useful to say. “What did you do?”

“I immediately ceased working with him—went back into service—and refused his letters,” Mr. Carson said, quite matter-of-factly.

 _Really_? Rawlins was still trying to figure out some response when Mr. Carson continued.

“Unfortunately, you cannot do the same—without, as I said, drawing undue attention to the matter—but in the circumstances, I think the course you are following is the right one. Keep him at arm’s length, but avoid a public falling-out, which would only raise questions about the cause.”

Was that what it looked like he was doing? 

More to the point, was that what _Barrow_ thought he was doing? “I see,” he said, for the sake of something to say.

Mr. Carson went on, “I do blame myself, I’m sorry to say. I ought to have dismissed him from the house as soon as I became aware of his…proclivities, but he’d been a good worker, up until then. I suppose I didn’t have the heart. I supposed that he would move on soon enough, as it was clear his sort weren’t welcome here, but….” He shrugged. “Who can understand what goes on in the mind of someone like that?”

“Er….”

“And now all of the women staff seem to have adopted him as a sort of mascot.”

“Er, yes,” Rawlins said, standing up hastily. “But if that’s all, I really should get back to my duties.”

“Of course. But if there should be any further concerns, I hope you will bring them to me.”

 _Oh, yes, certainly_ , Rawlins thought, on his way up the stairs. _I’ll certainly come to you if I want another cozy chat about how_ repellent _my best mate is._

Then he stopped, in mid-stride, examining what he had just thought. _Was_ Barrow still his best mate? 

If he was, Rawlins was going to have to do something about it, other than _keeping him at arm’s length_ , that was for sure. 

#

Thomas wasn’t sure who’d talked her into it, or how, but by the time Vicar Travis came to the house the next afternoon, Daisy was resigned to her role as war bride. Major Clarkson had made a special trip up to the house around midmorning, to look in on William, and had pronounced that he didn’t have long. “The fluids have filled nearly three-quarters of his lungs,” he had explained to Mr. Mason and Lady Edith, while Thomas stood off to one side. “At the rate they’re accumulating, he has less than twenty-four hours before he’ll no longer be able to get enough oxygen to survive. He may last the rest of the day, but I should be surprised if he saw the morning.” 

Mr. Mason had let out a sort of strangled gasp. Thomas knew what it felt like, to make a sound like that. 

But that had been the morning. Now it was afternoon, and Anna and some of the other women had done their best to fix Daisy up, putting her in a flowered blouse that looked like something Lady Edith had worn before the war, and putting her hair up in some sort of…uneven bunches over her ears, that reminded Thomas of a cocker spaniel. 

The maids all wore their black dresses, the ones they put on in the evenings. Without their white aprons on, the effect was funereal. 

They all went upstairs, even the new maid who’d just started that day, with Daisy on Carson’s arm like he was father of the bride, and when they got there, the bed was garlanded with flowers, and most of the family was there— Christ, they really were committing to this farce, weren’t they? The Dowager Countess was front and center, but the only one missing was Lady Mary, who was presumably down at the hospital with her own half-dead fiancé. 

Captain Crawley was, apparently, expected to live, but paralyzed. 

The vicar started to intone the marriage service— _instituted by God, in the time of man’s innocence—_ and Thomas wished he’d not come. He didn’t know why he had, really; he didn’t work for the house, and none of the convalescent home staff were here.

Perhaps he was here in case William started coughing up blood in the middle of his vows. That was probably it.

Mr. Mason produced the ring, with trembling fingers. Maybe _that_ was what Thomas was here for, to chase it down when he dropped it. 

But the old gaffer managed to hand it to his son, who managed to put it on Daisy’s finger, without incident. Thomas wondered idly where they’d managed to get their hands on one in the village—he’d not heard of anyone running into York, at least—but then he realized it was probably William’s dead mum’s ring. Merciful Christ.

Then it was done. They kissed, and Daisy stood by her husband’s deathbed, holding his hand, as everyone went to congratulate him and give her their best wishes.

The family first, of course, which left the rest of them standing around trying to figure out which of the things you normally said at a wedding could be gotten through with a straight face. That Daisy looked lovely, seemed to be the consensus. And the flowers. Quite a bit was said about the flowers. 

Finally, it was Thomas’s turn. “Congratulations,” he told William. “Never thought I’d see the day.”

William breathed raspily. He’d stopped trying to answer people, after Carson. 

“Right,” Thomas said. “Uh. Daisy.” He nodded to her, and retreated. 

There wasn’t a wedding breakfast—considering they’d gone to some trouble over the rest of it, Thomas thought there might have been _something_ , particularly as the wedding happened at about teatime, but perhaps Mrs. Patmore had been too busy browbeating the bride into participating in the ceremony. 

Dinner that night was pretty grim, too, both in terms of atmosphere and the food, which consisted of potatoes boiled too long, and meat not boiled long enough. But at least chewing it gave them all something to do, as nobody had very much to say. 

At least, not until after dinner was over. Once they’d all come to the conclusion there was to be no pudding, and started getting up to go about their business, Rawlins—who’d deigned to sit next to him this time—said, “Can we talk?”

Thomas wanted to say _No,_ but he supposed it would have to be done sooner or later, and if he opted for later, he’d only be up all night wondering if what Rawlins wanted to say was _I’ve decided to have to tell Major Clarkson that you’re a you-know-what_. “My office,” he said. This time of night, they’d be undisturbed there.

They went up. “Want a drink?” Thomas asked, challengingly. God knew he wanted one, and why _not_ make this a sort of parody of all the other times they’d talked in here? It couldn’t possibly make it any worse. 

“All right,” Rawlins said warily, sitting down in his usual spot. 

Thomas poured—the cheap brandy; he wasn’t wasting the last of the Wardmaster’s Armagnac on this—and handed one to Rawlins. “Cheers.”

“Cheers,” Rawlins echoed. 

He didn’t say anything else, and after a while, Thomas reminded him, “You said you wanted to talk.”

“Right,” he said, taking another quick belt of his drink. “Right, I…this…thing. About you.”

Thomas briefly considered the merits of pretending he had no idea what Rawlins was talking about. “What about it?”

“You know, a lot of chaps…do things, at school.”

If this was a pass, Thomas was going to _kill_ him. “Not at council schools, they don’t.”

“No, but what I mean is that it can be a sort of…stage, can’t it? When one starts having…impulses, and girls are still sort of mysterious, so….I mean, are you sure that you’re _really_ ….?”

On second thought, Thomas would have preferred the pass. “I’m twenty-six,” he said flatly. “And my best mate’s a girl.” Best one he had left, anyway. 

He only realized that some part of him had hoped Rawlins would say, _Thought I was your best mate_ , when Rawlins didn’t. 

He continued, “Pretty sure it’s not a _stage_ , yeah.”

“Right,” Rawlins muttered. He took another swallow of his drink. “So, Fitzroy, you, um…you actually loved him? Like…like you’re meant to love the girl you marry?”

“Yes.”

Rawlins heaved a sigh. “All right, then.” 

What the hell did he mean by that? “What?”

“I mean, it’s…fine. I don’t suppose it’s any of my business, really, but…you know, if that’s how it is, it’s fine.”

That really did not do much to clarify matters. “When you say _it’s fine_ …?”

“I mean, can we stop fighting now?”

Oh. 

Oh. 

Well, that was….

“I didn’t realize we were,” he lied. 

Rawlins punched him in the shoulder. 

“Hey, now.” Thomas shoved him back. “You almost made me spill my drink.” He downed it, and got up. “You want another one?”

“Yeah, all right,” Rawlins said, holding out his glass. 

“Well, finish that one, first,” Thomas said, and got out the other bottle. 

#

On her way to the servants’ hall for breakfast, Anna saw Mrs. Hughes coming out of her sitting room, a slight smile on her face. Anna hesitated, wondering what on Earth she could have found to smile about this morning—William had died at dawn, and Mrs. Patmore had spread the word to all the women, when she’d put Daisy to bed, just as the rest of them were getting up. 

Mrs. Hughes, seeing her confusion, reversed course back into her sitting room, beckoning Anna to follow. She drew aside the curtain to her window and motioned for Anna to look out. 

Thomas and Corporal Rawlins sat on their usual smoking crate, shoulder-to-shoulder. As she watched, Thomas laughed at something Corporal Rawlins said. 

Mrs. Hughes let the curtain fall back, and they stepped away from the window. “It does my heart good to see something going well, on a day like today,” she said. 

“Yes,” Anna agreed. “It certainly does.”


	29. Interlude: The Peter Letters, part 5

_25 December, 1917_

_Happy Christmas, dearest. We didn’t manage much of a celebration this year—the shortages are something awful. We all saved what we could from our parcels, but it didn’t amount to much. And we’re all bitterly disappointed to still be here—we did rather get our hopes up, when the Americans declared. (What_ have _they been doing with themselves? The propaganda papers that they give us don’t say. We can only guess that they are still in the war, because if they’d backed out, the Germans would be sure to tell us_ that _.)_

_But other than that we are getting on all right._

_Miss you._

_5 March, 1918_

_Sorry I haven’t written in a while (I say as though you would have noticed the lack!). Spirits are rather low here as our hosts have been boasting of the Russian surrender. The propaganda papers have painted it as the beginning of the German’s inevitable victory, but our latest patients-cum-fellow-prisoners assure us that the Russians have scarpered to deal with their own troubles at home, and since England and France are not on brink of revolution, there is no fear of our following suit. They also say we can expect real help from the Americans in this year’s offensives, though nobody knows very much. (We are all sort of guiltily hoping for an American prisoner to join us, and give us the inside information.)_

_I’ve been thinking lately about how funny it is what one can get used to. We get up each day and do our work—the usual sort of hospital things—and eat our meals, and wash out our socks &c., and altogether don’t think very much about the fact that we’re being held captive deep inside enemy territory, and haven’t been out of this building in over a year. (They didn’t let us out to go to church this past Christmas.) Instead, we think about whether our only bar of soap will last until our next parcel, and when we will get a turn with a book we haven’t read half a dozen times already. (Books are communal property here, after the original recipient has read it.) _

_Early on, I used to sometimes forget, and catch myself thinking about popping out to the shops for something, or about what I’d do on my next day out. That no longer happens. Instead, it barely seems real that life was ever any different than it is now._

_Now, I sometimes catch myself wishing you were here with me. That sounds dreadful, I know—I wouldn’t really want you to be a prisoner too, even if by some miracle you could be sent to this place. I suppose what I mean is that this place has come to seem normal to me. And that I miss you, of course._

_June 13, 1918_

_One bit of war news that has reached us is the Allied bombing of German cities—because the Germans are furious about it. (Never mind that they were doing the same thing, from Zeps, even before I was captured! And the propaganda papers they give us are full of news about their aeroplane production, so I’m sure they’re still doing it.)_

_I think there must have been An Incident, that outraged them particularly—I hope to God it wasn’t a school or something like that, although if it was, I’m sure it was an accident, just like their sinking our poor hospital ship all those years ago, and the RAF pilots are just as sorry as “our” U-Boat chums were. (I’ve been reading over my old letters, and so thinking about them. The propaganda papers don’t tell us about any German losses, of course, unless it’s something we’ve done wrong that they can crow about, so I’ve no idea if anything’s happened to them. I hope—let’s see—I hope they’re all safe and whole, but quarantined in port with measles or something, so they can’t sink any more of our ships!)_

_But I was talking about the aerial bombing. A group of outraged hospital staff herded us—the orderlies, I mean—up onto the roof with buckets of paint, to put the sign of the Red Cross big enough to be seen from the air. We were given the impression that this was something in the nature of a reprisal for our countrymen’s perfidy, but I think it an excellent idea, and would have suggested it myself had I thought of it first—although, had the project been voluntary, I might not have gone along. I was unable to do any actual painting, needing one hand to hold on to things and not having a spare, so my participation was largely symbolic._

_A group of German civilians formed on the pavement below, and yelled as we worked. It was quite impossible to tell whether they were cheering or jeering—perhaps a mix of both._

_26 September, 1918_

_We got a new patient the other day—a downed RAF pilot. He is the first in some time to have come to us direct from the War, and not from a prison camp here in Germany. He tells us that the last Big Push actually succeeded, and that we are now pushing the German lines back._

_I suppose you must already know this—the English papers would certainly be covering it! Here, we have had no propaganda papers for some time, and our hosts have been more careful than usual about making sure that we do not see German ones. This had, of course, led to much speculation that the war is going badly for them—they make no effort to keep secret anything which might demoralize us!—but we tried not to get our hopes up too much._

_Now that we have this certain knowledge, though, it is difficult not to notice a dispirited air in our hosts, and an increased flow of German wounded into the other wards, and various other clues which suggest a hopeful outcome._

_You know what I mean, of course, though I hardly dare to say it. We’ve all begun to think that, just maybe, we might be winning the war. That we might soon be coming home._


	30. Chapter 24:  November, 1918

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> November, 1918.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter overlaps with episode 2x06.
> 
> Special note for readers who haven't seen _Downton Abbey_ : The briefly-alluded-to matter of the disfigured Canadian claiming to be the Crawleys' cousin who died on the _Titanic_ is canon. No, you are not missing anything which would make it not ridiculous. The plotline is resolved--or not--in the same way that it is here, and it never comes up again. 
> 
> But it was remembering this storyline from canon that convinced me I could plausibly have Peter survive his own shipwreck and go missing for several years, since the way I did it is at _least_ 20% less bonkers than the time canon did it.

“…and, of course, if he does have Spanish Flu, we can’t risk bringing him to the hospital, where he can infect the patients,” Sister Crawley said. She’d just been explaining to Thomas that one of the regular guests of her soup kitchen had been absent long enough to lead her to ask his friends what had become of him. They’d explained that he was ill, and not strong enough to make it to the village from…wherever it was they were staying. “In fact, in that case it would be best to keep him out of the village entirely. So you see that I must go there and examine him.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Thomas said, wondering when she was going to get to the point. Sister Crawley did tend to overlook distinctions of rank when it came to her amiable steamrolling, and there was no way to say to her that she didn’t have to bother leading him by the nose to whatever it was she wanted him to do—she could just tell him to do it.

“It took some convincing, but his friend did agree to take me to him, on condition that I promise not to reveal to anyone where they’re staying.” She looked at him expectantly.

“Very good, ma’am.” 

“I knew you’d understand,” she said, her tone making clear that he had just agreed to do something, although he still didn’t know what. “It wouldn’t be at all right for me to go to some sort of…tramps’ encampment on my own. I’m sure they’re all perfectly decent men, of course, but…well, there is the look of the thing, and I really would feel more comfortable.”

From this, Thomas finally gathered that he was accompanying her to said tramps’ encampment, and also keeping his mouth shut about the fact that they were almost certainly illegally squatting wherever it was. Well, that wasn’t so bad. He considered asking whether Major Clarkson had given his blessing to this venture, but he was fairly sure he knew the answer already—it would make a great deal more sense for Major Clarkson to go himself, as he was more qualified than Sister Crawley to diagnose the sick man and had nothing to fear for his virtue in a tramps’ encampment. And if something went wrong, it would be better if he could claim it had never crossed his mind that the expedition was unauthorized. “I see. When are we going?”

“Immediately,” she said. “Our escort was very reluctant to show us the way there, and I’m afraid that if he goes back on his own ahead of us, the other men will talk him out of it.”

Naturally. People who had been subjected to the steamroller treatment did sometimes begin having opinions of their own if they were given time to think. “Of course, ma’am. Just let me give a few instructions to Corporal Rawlins, and we can be on our way.”

Fortunately, she left his office, so he didn’t have to dance around the subject when he summoned Rawlins in. “Sister Crawley’s dragging me off on one of her mad schemes,” he said, handing over the key to the drugs cabinet. “So I’ll need you to hold down the fort. Anyone asks, I’ve nipped down to the village for cigarettes, and I’ll be back any moment, but in the meantime you’ll help them with whatever it is they want me for.”

“All right,” Rawlins said, pocketing the key. “What if it’s Major Clarkson asking?”

Thomas had to think about that one for a moment. “If he pops in unexpectedly, tell him the same thing. If I’m not back by the time he comes for rounds, something’s gone really wrong, so tell him I popped out for cigarettes earlier, but I ought to have been back in plenty of time, and you’re starting to wonder what’s keeping me.”

Frowning slightly, Rawlins asked, “Just how mad is this scheme?”

“Not too mad. Some light trespassing. Nothing to worry about, really.”

Tracking Sister Crawley to the medical supplies room downstairs, Thomas found her stuffing a rucksack with various items—more evidence, if he needed it, that Major Clarkson did _not_ know where they were going or why. If he had, she could have gathered her supplies from the hospital. She gave him the rucksack to carry, of course, and he put in a box of hospital-issue cigarettes—most of the officers preferred to smoke their usual civilian brands, so they had plenty. 

They met their escort outside the kitchen courtyard. He might’ve been the same bloke Thomas had seen outside the tobacconist shop, and sent to Sister Crawley—or he might not’ve been. Either way, he was in the same mold—thin-faced, ragged, leaning on a cane. “Sergeant Barrow, this is Mr. Duggan,” she said, as if they were in a drawing room. “He’ll be coming along to help.”

Duggan gave a wary nod. “Sarge.”

“You can rely on his discretion as you can on my own,” Sister Crawley added. 

They set out. It wasn’t too bad of a day for early November, windy but not very cold. The skies had also been clear for the last several days—a fact of which Thomas was glad when it developed that they were going on a cross-country ramble. Partway to the village, they left the lane for a footpath, which then dwindled into a sort of deer-track through a wood. Thomas began to have an idea of where they were headed, but kept mum.

Sister Crawley had enough to say for the both of them, mostly on the theme of how the war would be ending soon, “And once it is, the government will _have_ to do something for our wounded heroes.”

Thomas doubted that very much—and he wasn’t too convinced that the war would be over in the next few days, either. Sure, everyone was saying so, but they’d all said so when the United States Marines drove the Hun out of Belleau Wood, and when the Fourth Army had broken through at Amiens, and after the Argonne, and when the Germans had withdrawn their submarines from the Irish Sea, and….

Well, it certainly did seem that the Germans were marching toward defeat—unless they had something really surprising up their sleeves—but there was no particular reason to believe they’d get there before winter came in hard, and everybody dug in again to wait it out. 

Or that might have been wishful thinking, on Thomas’s part.

Abruptly, the woods ahead of them thinned, and the arched windows and slate roof of Haxby Park came into view. Sister Crawley gasped; Thomas might’ve, too—though not necessarily disapproved—if he thought the scarecrows had the balls to squat in the manor house itself, but he knew that another solution would have seemed more obvious and proper to them. Thomas’s section had been far from the only unit to be billeted in an outbuilding, in France.

His suspicions were confirmed when Duggan said, “We’re over this way, ma’am,” and led them down another game trail, which curved away from the house and its overgrown lawn. He went on, “I know we’re…but we’re not hurtin’ no one, staying where we are. They’ve been gone from the big house for months now, and took all their things with ‘em, furniture and all, and the whole place shut up tight, like they ain’t coming back.”

“It’s for sale, I believe,” Mrs. Crawley murmured, as ahead of them a long, low structure came into view.

“That might be so, ma’am, but don’t nobody come to look at it. And we keep our place just as good as we found it, and we’re careful with the fire and all,” he added earnestly, and repeated, “We ain’t hurting no one.”

“If you ask me,” Sister Crawley said, “the real crime is for perfectly good dwellings to stand empty, when our wounded soldiers need places to live.”

Thomas did not disagree, though he wondered if Sister Crawley had caught on yet that where the soldiers were living was not a dwelling, exactly.

But then, the horses at Haxby Park, when there had still been horses—they would have gone even before the people, requisitioned by the War Office to die in France—had certainly been better-housed than plenty of people in England. The stable’s paint was peeling a bit, but it was spacious and well-built, with plenty of windows to let in light and air. 

The roof looked intact, too. 

Duggan let them in through a side door and led them up the aisle, past a row of stalls. Looking over the half-doors, Thomas could see that many of them contained makeshift pallets, made of straw and old blankets, small piles of possessions, bits of washing hung up on the mangers or over the half-doors. He wondered where the occupants were.

About a half-dozen of them, it developed, were gathered around a stove in what had probably been the grooms’ work-room, sitting on battered benches or bales of straw. Or possibly hay. “Duggan, what’re you—” someone began.

“It’s th’Sister!” someone else yelped. 

They all stood up. Some looked furtive, or ashamed; one defiant. The first man said, “Ma’am,” to Sister Crawley, and dragged Duggan aside for a whispered conference. 

Every eye fixed on her, Sister Crawley looked around the room, taking in the heap of sticks—gathered from the wood, no doubt—by the stove, the battered kettle, the sacks and crates half-full of dirty potatoes, mangel-wurzels, and the like. “My,” she said. “You seem to have arranged things very nicely here.” 

“They weren’t usin’ it,” the defiant-looking one said. He was missing an eye, and that side of his face was badly scarred, as though it had melted. “So why shouldn’t we?”

“I quite agree,” she said. “How many of you live here?”

“As many as need to,” the scarred man said. 

Sister Crawley was wise enough not to press for specifics. Instead, she examined the root vegetables and asked, “Have you started a vegetable plot?”

One of the other men, leaning on a cane, answered. “We’ve not been here long enough for that. No, we work when we can, and take what we can get for it. Usually not much more than a meal, but with the harvest there’s been more work to be had. So we tell ‘em we want some of whatever we’re bringing in, to take with us—to put by for winter, like, now we’ve got a place to keep it.”

“Very sensible,” Sister Crawley said. “Do you hold your food supplies in common, then?”

“The stuff like that, yeah,” the man with the cane said. “Most of us can do a job of work, on a good day—but they ain’t all good days, are they?”

Sister Crawley asked a few more questions about food supplies, and then men explained how they planned, once the harvest was finished, to glean what grain they could from the reaped fields, and then gather walnuts and chestnuts from the wood. Sister Crawley delicately avoided the question of poaching, but Thomas thought that, if the men _didn’t_ have their eye on any of the free meat hopping, flying, and scampering around the wood, they were mad. 

Shortly, Duggan came back to them. “All right, Ted’s just this way,” he said, leading them down another row of horse stalls. Once they were a little distance away from the other men, he explained, “Dobson’s all right, really. He just worries about…well. We’re not going to find a place as good as this to spend the winter, if we get—”

He was interrupted by the sound of someone coughing violently. “That’s Ted,” Duggan said grimly, putting on a burst of speed. 

“He doesn’t sound well,” Sister Crawley noted. 

Up ahead, Thomas saw a figure darting inside the stall at the end of the row. Oddly, it seemed to be wearing a _skirt_. Could it be a—well, someone like Syl, accepted by the rest? Perhaps he’d simply had a blanket wrapped around himself. This part of the building faced away from the setting sun, so there wasn’t much light. 

“What,” Sister Crawley began, but at the same moment, Duggan announced that they had reached “Ted’s place.” 

They looked over the half-door into the stall. The man inside was half-lying, half-sitting, propped up against a pile of straw—or hay, or whatever it was—and covered with a couple of blankets. 

Duggan explained, “We know he oughta be kept warm, but if he goes in where the fire is, the smoke makes ‘im cough worse.” He paused. “Course, the cold makes ‘im cough worse, too.”

Damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. Thomas was beginning to think it highly unlikely that the man had Spanish ‘flu, but nevertheless, he and Sister Crawley tied gauze masks over their noses and mouths, as a recent RAMC bulletin advised when dealing with suspected cases. 

“Hello, Ted,” she said, letting herself into the loose-box. “I don’t know if you remember me—Mrs. Crawley, from the village hospital. No, don’t get up,” she added, as Ted moved to throw off his blankets. “I can see you aren’t feeling well.”

“Not at me—” Ted coughed. “Me best, ma’am, no.” He sagged back against the makeshift pillow, as if worn out by the effort of speaking. At this distance, Thomas could hear that his breathing was raspy.

Weak but alert—not at all typical of Spanish flu. Still, they went through the motions of taking his temperature and pulse, and then Sister Crawley listened to his lungs with a stethoscope. Pulling the gauze mask down from her face, she said, “How long ago were you gassed?”

“In ’16,” Ted said. “August, I think.” He coughed again. 

“It can’t be that,” Duggan argued. “He weren’t near this bad last winter.”

“Unfortunately, what we’re finding is that the damage can worsen over time,” Sister Crawley said. They didn’t see very much of that at the hospital or the convalescent home, and her next words explained why. “There are inhalants that can give some relief, but the most effective treatment is relocation to a warm, dry climate.”

That treatment might be possible for officers—gentlemen, or at least temporary ones drawn from the educated middle class—but not to working-class enlisted men, even the ones that had jobs and homes to live in. In Ted’s situation, it was something of a cruel joke even to mention it. 

Both Ted and Dugan were too polite—or perhaps too embarrassed—to say so. Finally, Thomas said, “So what are _we_ going to do?”

Sister Crawley rallied. “Since he isn’t contagious, we can take Mr….Ted to the hospital for care.”

“He ent an officer,” Duggan pointed out. 

“Doctor Clarkson remains responsible for the medical needs of the village,” Sister Crawley said. “He’ll be admitted as a civilian patient.”

It was a bit of a stretch to define an indigent transient squatting in a vacant barn as a resident of the village, and civilian patients were expected to _pay_ , but Thomas expected that overcoming those objections was well within Sister Crawley’s capabilities. 

She continued, “I’ll make the arrangements, and return for him tomorrow or the next day. In the meantime, keep him as warm as you can. You might try heating some bricks, or even large stones, on the stove, and put those in with him.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Duggan said. “Thank you.” 

Thomas had a number of questions, but decided they could wait until the patient and his friend were no longer in earshot. However, their departure was to be further delayed. Upon leaving Ted’s living quarters, Sister Crawley turned left, heading down the row of stalls, instead of back the way they had come. Thomas, lacking much choice in the matter, followed her. 

The final stall in the row had a bit of sacking hung up as a curtain over the half-door. Absurdly, Sister Crawley knocked on the door below it. The only answer from within was some rustling and hushing noises. Sister Crawly pushed the sack curtain aside. 

_“Ethel_?” Sister Crawley sounded shocked—as well she might. Ethel had disappeared months ago—just taken off from Crawley House while everyone was distracted by Mr. Matthew’s injury and return. She’d grabbed some stuff on her way out—food and clothes, mostly, and a few shillings—but Sister Crawley had decided against involving the police. 

Now, Sister Crawley fumbled with the latch on the stall door. Thomas stepped forward—not sure whether he meant to help her or stop her—and saw that inside the stall was, indeed, Ethel. Dressed in a hodgepodge of garments and clutching the baby—now a fair bit larger—to her chest, she backed away from the door. “You can’t have him,” she said. “I won’t let you take him.”

“I couldn’t take him against your will, even if I wanted to,” Sister Crawley explained calmly, finally getting the half-door open. “Is that why you ran?” she asked as she entered the stall.

Falling back a few feet, Thomas met up with Duggan, who’d come out of Ted’s stall—perhaps to find out what the raised voices were about. “T’Sister knows her?” he asked.

Thomas nodded. “She used to be a maid at the big house,” he explained, before it occurred to him that she might have told some other story. 

“She’s all right here,” Duggan said earnestly. “I mean—t’men don’t bother her none.”

“Good,” Thomas said vaguely. He’d thought of Ethel a few times since she’d disappeared, wondering where she’d ended up. He’d have guessed she was long gone—to London, perhaps, or some far-away place where whatever story she told to explain the baby would be difficult to check. Why would she have stayed this close, if she expected Sister Crawley to come after her for the baby, let alone what she’d stolen?

Possibly because, as a place to live when you’d no money and no way of earning any, this place was hard to beat. 

Duggan was still talking, rambling about how Ethel didn’t go out looking for work, as the men did, but she mended their clothes, and helped with the cooking and washing, and in return they shared what food they had and entertained the baby while she was busy with her chores. “’e’s a clever little lad, ’er Charlie,” Duggan said admiringly. “Walkin’ a bit now, as small as he is.” 

There was a protracted bout of coughing from inside Ted’s stall, and when Duggan went in to attend to him, Thomas drifted back over to where Ethel was. 

“—not at all a suitable place for a young child,” Sister Crawley was saying. “I can’t imagine what you were thinking.”

“I didn’t have a lot of choice, did I?” Ethel replied, defiantly. “Charlie’s all right here—he’s got his mother.” 

Thomas reached for his cigarettes, then remembered Duggan saying that they didn’t have Ted in the room with the fire because the smoke aggravated his lungs. Cigarette smoke probably wouldn’t be any better for him. 

Retreating as far up the aisle as he could and still keep Ethel’s “apartment” in view, he leaned up against the door of a vacant stall and lit up. As he did so, one of the ragged men appeared. Wordlessly, Thomas handed him a cigarette. 

Nodding his thanks, the man lit it, hunching awkwardly to one side to get his other hand up to his face to shield the match. The movement was both odd to watch and—to Thomas—intimately familiar. “Stuck shoulder?” he asked. 

The man nodded again. “Yeah.”

“That’s what mine is.” Thomas’s wasn’t as bad, though—or hadn’t been, since they physiotherapy he’d gotten at the Royal Orthopedic. He wondered if the man’s injury had been worse than his to begin with, or if he hadn’t gotten the level of care Thomas had. 

The man, he guessed, might well have been wondering the same thing. Or at least why Thomas was standing here, well-fed and in an Army greatcoat, while he was wearing rags and digging potatoes one-handed to keep the wolf from the door. 

To forestall any questions on the subject—which he’d not be able to answer in any case—Thomas put his cigarette down, balancing it on the top of the half-door to the stall, and took off the rucksack. “Nearly forgot I had these,” he said, digging out the carton of cigarettes. “Nicked them from the hospital—you can share them around.”

Juggling his own cigarette into his bad hand, the man took the box. “Thanks. You won’t get in trouble for taking them?”

“Nah; they send us plenty, and it’s all officers, so they usually buy their own.” Besides, if the war _did_ end in the next few days, and the Army kicked him to the curb, it could be a very worthwhile investment. 

He wondered if there were any stalls vacant, and whether Ethel would put in a good word for him with the Membership Committee. “Not a bad place here,” he added, picking his cigarette back up. “Damn sight better than the barn I was billeted in in France.”

“You had a barn? Jammy bastard. Ours was a chicken coop.” 

“Well, half the roof was missing.” 

They chatted on in a desultory sort of way about billets, and the relative advantages of this one—in addition to being structurally sound, it had a working water-pump—until Sister Crawley came back. 

On the way out, the picked up Dobson—the man who’d castigated Duggan for bringing them—as escort. As he led them back through the woods, Sister Crawley attempted to assure him that the secret of the group’s location was safe with her. 

Unfortunately, she repeated her line about the men’s homelessness being the real crime, which to Dobson may have underscored the fact that their habitation of Haxby Park was, technically, criminal. He stopped about midway through the woods and informed them that they could find their own way back to the village from there. 

Once Dobson was out of earshot, Thomas asked, “You think Ted’s going to make it, ma’am?”

The way Sister Crawley’s lips pressed together was enough of an answer, even without her saying, “He’ll have some chance of improving if we can get him to the hospital.”

“Yes, ma’am. Do you have a plan for how we’re going to do that?”

She sighed. “Not yet.” 

Thomas had been ticking through the possibilities mentally ever since she’d said they’d make the arrangements. There weren’t very many of them, none were very good, and only one seemed at all feasible. “I think we’d better bring Nurse Crawley in on it.”

She glanced at him sharply. “Why? Surely it would be better to use some of the men.”

The most important reason that was Lady Sybil was, along with Mrs. Crawley, the only person available to them who was guaranteed to be shielded from any consequences of keeping the men’s trespass a secret. But he said, “She can get us use of a car, and Mr. Branson. He won’t mind about Haxby Park, him being a Socialist and all, but the cars are his responsibility. With one of the family involved, he won’t argue.” That, and Nurse Crawley could probably talk him into a robbing a bank if she wanted. 

“I see,” said Sister Crawley. “I had thought about bringing Ted to the village by stretcher, but I agree that a car would be better—much less chance of him catching a chill.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Thomas said. Also, all of the men they had access to—the orderlies, the men at the barn, and even Branson—were available because they _weren’t_ , in the learned opinion of RAMC medical panels, fit enough to carry stretchers for long distances cross-country. “I expect the gates to the estate are locked, so we’ll need to take him that far by stretcher, at least.” Branson, he thought, could manage one end—surely his whatsit-valve could stand that much effort—and Thomas could take one side of the other end with his good arm, with the two Nurses Crawley taking turns on the other.

It would not be a smooth ride—Thomas wouldn’t have dared try it with a gut wound, for instance, or anything else likely to be worsened by jostling—but Thomas gave them decent odds of getting Ted as far as the car without actually dumping him on the ground. 

Sister Crawley agreed to this plan. As they came out of the woods—fortunately, at about the spot where Thomas had expected them to—he said, “And then there’s the matter of Major Clarkson.” 

Sister Crawley, as it turned out, was less oblivious than Thomas had feared to Major Clarkson’s likely reaction to the proposal that they admit an indigent, transient, and likely dying ex-enlisted man as a patient. “I think,” she said, “it will be best to present the matter as _fait accompli_. He can scarcely object to treating an obviously sick man who is directly in front of him.”

Thomas chose not to quibble with her word choice—Major Clarkson, in his view, was almost certain to _object_ ; what he couldn’t decently do was _refuse_. “Ma’am,” he agreed. 

When he got back to the house, Thomas was relieved to find that he’d not been missed. A few people had been looking for him, but “Nothing I couldn’t handle,” Rawlins assured him, dropping the key to the drugs cabinet into Thomas’s hand. “How did the trespassing go?”

“All right,” Thomas said. “For us, at least. The bloke we went to look at is in pretty bad shape.” He went on to explain the man’s condition, and Sister Crawley’s prognosis. “She wants to take him to the hospital, but I don’t expect it’ll make much difference, except that he dies someplace warm.” 

“Damn,” Rawlins said. 

#

“You won’t guess who I saw today,” Thomas announced, dropping into his usual place next to Anna in the servants’ hall.

“Then I won’t try,” she said. “Who?”

“Ethel.” 

He was right; she’d not have guessed that. “Where?” She hoped Ethel hadn’t turned up at Downton again—though if she had, he ought to be telling Mrs. Hughes, not her. 

“Can’t tell you where, exactly, but she’s staying with some of the men from Sister Crawley’s soup kitchen.”

He went on to explain how he and Mrs. Crawley had gone there to check on one of the men who was ill, but Anna missed some of the details, preoccupied with how Ethel had landed in such a situation and, even more urgently, just what she was doing there. “Are there other women there?” Maybe it wasn’t as bad as she thought. “In their…camp, or whatever it is?”

“Don’t think so,” Thomas said. “One of the men said she did their sewing. Like Wendy and the Lost Boys.”

Anna highly doubted it was as innocent as that, and wondered if Thomas really thought so, either. “What’s Mrs. Crawley going to do?”

“About her? I don’t know. She didn’t think it was a good place for the baby, but I’d say the—where they are—probably keeps out the weather better than the room Ethel was renting in Ripon.”

Mrs. Hughes had not considered any details about Ethel’s situation in Ripon to be fit for Anna’s ears, so she was in no position to make a comparison, but it surprised her that a rough-sleepers’ camp could be better. “Have they found an abandoned cottage or something?” she asked. 

“Or something, yeah.” He held up one hand. “They swore us to secrecy, and they’re not doing anyone any harm. That’s all I’ll say.”

And it was. After a few more fruitless questions on the topic, Anna changed the subject. “Mr. Bates has heard from Vera. She’s taking it badly.” The private detective that Mr. Bates had hired had managed to identify her lover, and had taken several sets of incriminating photographs. Unfortunately, her lover was not married, nor a clergyman or anything else that would give him a particular fear of disclosure of the affair, so Mr. Bates had handed the evidence over to a lawyer, who had recently confronted Vera with it. All that, Thomas already knew.

“How badly?” Thomas asked. 

“Insisting that it isn’t her in the photographs, apparently, and threatening that if he shows them in court, she’ll reveal something equally incriminating about him.”

That got Thomas’s attention. “What’s that?”

“Mr. Bates has no idea,” she said. “We’ve guessed it might be the old story that he and I are having an affair ourselves, but she can’t have any real proof, since we aren’t. Nor would it do her much good—she might think that adultery on his part cancels out hers, but the law doesn’t work that way.” 

“Could be she just wants to embarrass him,” Thomas pointed out. “And you. You might have to go and swear under oath that you aren’t having an affair.”

Anna almost _hoped_ that was all Vera wanted—and she supposed it might well be; Mr. Bates had mentioned a time or two that Vera’s mind worked a lot like Thomas’s. “I don’t mind embarrassment, if it gets Mr. Bates free of her,” Anna said. “I’d show up in court naked on horseback, like Lady Godiva, if that’s what it took.”

“I don’t think that’d do much good,” Thomas noted. “Except to boost the circulation of the illustrated papers, maybe.” 

#

“Sergeant,” Nurse Crawley said. “I’m so glad no one else is here.”

Thomas raised an eyebrow. It was lucky no one was, since that was precisely the sort of remark that would lead to gossip. He was in his office, trying to get caught up on the ever-present paperwork, and the orderlies’ room was—as Nurse Crawley had observed—empty. “Why’s that?”

She came into his office area and sat in one of the armchairs. “Tom—Branson, I mean—is willing to help with Cousin Isobel’s mission of mercy, but Mama has a hospital meeting in York, and then….” She went on for several moments more, explaining the various errands and engagements that would have Branson, and the larger of the household’s motorcars, tied up all day. “So it’ll have to be tomorrow, unless we want to try to get Edith to take us in the coupe.”

“I think tomorrow will be soon enough,” Thomas said, when she paused for a response. “But have you asked Sister Crawley?”

“I haven’t seen her yet today,” Nurse Crawley explained. “I’ll ask her when she comes up to see Cousin Matthew,” who had been transferred from the hospital to the convalescent home a few weeks ago, “but I wondered if I should start trying to persuade Edith.”

After a moment’s quick calculation, Thomas said, “I wouldn’t.” For one thing, Lady Edith’s reaction to the camp was difficult to predict—the family had been friendly with the Russells, who owned Haxby Park, for ages. It wouldn’t be surprising if Lady Edith thought they ought to be informed about the trespassers on their property. Nurse Crawley, with her vague but radical political impulses, was less likely to be feel that way—and if she did, Thomas was confident that, between them, Sister Crawley and Branson would be able to convince her otherwise. “I’m not sure the coupe will be big enough for the whole party, and we’ll need Branson to carry the stretcher.”

“I can help carry it,” Nurse Crawley said, with a touch of indignation.

“I’m counting on it,” Thomas told her. “Since I can’t.”

“Oh,” she said. “Right. Then I suppose tomorrow is best.”

“I think so,” he agreed.

Moving on, she said, “I really came in here to talk to you about the inventory of the pharmacy cabinet.”

Damn. “Is there a discrepancy?” The convalescent home had always gone through a bit more morphine than the Medical Officers’ orders could account for, but they’d recently undertaken some new precautions—extra paperwork, never leaving the key lying about, and so on—in response to increasingly insistent RAMC circulars on the subject. 

“A smaller one than before,” Nurse Crawley said. “The anesthesia drugs and the intravenous morphine are all accounted for, but we’re still missing about half a bottle’s worth of morphine tablets.” She handed Thomas the inventory sheets.

That was a pretty considerable improvement even over last month, but Thomas knew it wasn’t going to be good enough for Major Clarkson. The trouble was that the new precautions meant that any innocent explanation for the missing tablets was increasingly unlikely. 

In former days, when a patient needed a morphine dose, Thomas—or whoever had the key on a given shift—would hand it over to the patient’s nurse or orderly, who would fetch what was needed, re-lock the cabinet, and return the key. At least, that was what was supposed to happen. Often, the person would forget to lock the cabinet again, or leave the key sitting in the middle of Thomas’s desk, or even—more than once—dangling from the lock, making it easy for any ambulatory patient who was getting less morphine than he wanted to help himself. 

Another problem was that quite a few of the staff found it inconvenient to track down the person who had the key every time a patient needed something from the cabinet, and so would draw out a shift’s worth all at one go—often taking a few extra for incidentals, or failing to return the extra tablets if a dosage was changed or a patient transferred to someone else’s case load. And that was on top of people taking the odd tablet or two for their own aches and pains, or giving in to a patient’s pestering for an extra dose.

Under that system, it would be quite easy, over the course of a month, for various small mistakes and misdeeds to add up to half a bottle’s worth of missing tablets, with no one person really to blame.

Now, Thomas—or whomever he left in charge of the drugs cabinet—was supposed to go to the cabinet personally, unlock it, count out the prescribed number of tablets, and lock it up again. No one was allowed to handle the key without having it impressed upon him, or her, that the controlled drugs were to be given out only according to doctor’s orders, and that the key was never to be given to anyone else or left unattended. Someone was either being _wantonly_ careless with the key—or taking the stuff deliberately. And there was a limited number of people it could possibly be.

At least, the number was limited compared to “the entire staff plus enterprising patients.” Between night shifts, Thomas’s days off, and occasional temporary absences like yesterday’s, close to a dozen people—including Thomas, Nurse Crawley, and Rawlins—had had the key in their possession at one time or another since the last inventory. 

“We’ll have to inventory it more often,” he said. The inventory took ages—the physical count of what was in the cabinet had to be checked against the day-book, which in turn was checked against patient charts—but a weekly inventory would drastically narrow down the list of who could be responsible. 

“I suppose so,” Nurse Crawley sighed. “Do you suppose someone’s really stealing it?”

That depended on what you meant by _really stealing_. The amount they’d shaved it down to, by this point, didn’t seem like enough for anybody to be selling it on the black market, for instance. Whoever was responsible might be giving it to patients—or, as Thomas privately thought even more likely—taking it himself. Most of the orderlies they had now were veterans of the Front, and crippled to one degree or another. He doubted that any of them _hadn’t_ helped themselves to a tablet or two from time to time, back in the old, less-careful days—he’d certainly done it. 

He’d also _stopped_ doing it, when it started to seem a bit more serious than nicking hospital cigarettes—not the sort of thing you could reasonably expect to get away with. 

“Don’t know,” he said. “Could be someone thinks Major Clarkson’s being too stingy when it comes to ordering it, and is slipping patients a few extras.”

“It _is_ difficult to refuse, when they’re asking for it,” Nurse Crawley said. “I mean _, I_ haven’t given out any ‘extras’ since Doctor Clarkson spoke to us in the spring, about how dangerous it can be, but I did before.” 

“Everyone did,” Thomas agreed. “At the Front, we didn’t even need medical orders for it; we just handed it out.” He wasn’t sure if that had changed. Probably not. He knew they still got new patients at the hospital who were obviously doped up to the gills, but had nothing on their tally-cards about how much they’d been given or when. 

Nurse Crawley changed the subject. “Do you suppose it’s true, that it’ll all be over soon? Now that Austria as well as Turkey has surrendered, I mean.” 

“Don’t know,” he said. “I mean, how many times before have we all thought it was nearly over?”

“Too many,” she agreed solemnly. Then, with a touch of exasperation, “Mama thinks we’ll ‘have our house back’ in the new year.”

Thomas glanced over at her sharply, startled. “That soon?” Even if the war ended today, people would keep needing medical care for a long time, surely.

“I don’t think she means on New Year’s _Day_ ,” Nurse Crawley clarified. “But in the first few weeks, perhaps.”

The thought was unsettling. “I suppose if she insists, they could find places elsewhere for them all. Once no new patients are coming in, I mean.”

“She says she won’t _insist_ ,” Nurse Crawley said. “But…well, I suppose they could mean to shut down the smaller facilities first—return them to civilian operation, I mean. But I thought they’d close up the Base Hospitals in France first—move everyone back to England. If they do it that way, they’ll still need us, and places like this, for a while yet.”

“Yeah,” Thomas said. Either of those approaches would make sense—and, knowing the Army, they could just as easily choose to do something else entirely, which _didn’t_ make sense. “Yeah, it might go that way.”

“I _hope_ so,” Nurse Crawley said vehemently. Quickly, she added, “I mean, of course I’ll be glad when all the fighting is done, and when all the injured men are well again. But I can’t bear the thought of everything going back to how it was.”

“I know just what you mean.” 

Nurse Crawley left not long after that, but Thomas went on thinking about what she had said. The convalescent home could, now that he thought about it, close down very quickly. Most of the patients, at any given time, required little or nothing in the way of medical care—a large part of the reason for the convalescent home system was that the War Office wanted the officers who’d be going back to their units to recuperate in a military environment. A long home leave would, it was thought, sap their fighting spirit. 

And the medical panels were always backed up, leaving men who were _obviously_ not going back to France—amputees, blind men, paralyzed cases like Captain Crawley—waiting weeks or months, after they’d recovered as much as they were going to, for their official discharge home. 

All in all, probably two-thirds of the patients, if not more, would be ready to leave the moment they had permission to do so. The War Office might well bungle it—keep insisting on medical panels even though everyone would be going home—but the cost savings of discharging them _en masse_ would be a considerable motivation to uncharacteristic efficiency. 

However you looked at it, if the war did end soon—and Thomas had to hope it did, despite the personal ramifications—Thomas’s job as Wardmaster wouldn’t last much longer. Less clear, however, was whether that meant he’d also be out of the Army. Wounded men would continue to need medical care—somewhere, if not here—for quite a while yet. 

The real question was, would he be better off planning his own exit, or getting in good with Major Clarkson, in hopes of a recommendation for a position elsewhere in the RAMC? 

Because, morphine aside—he wouldn’t be thick enough to nick that—his position as Wardmaster was an unparalleled opportunity to feather his own nest. When the convalescent home _did_ shut down, nobody was going to be looking too closely at the stuff they sent back. If he got moving, he could probably put aside enough hospital cigarettes to open a tobacconist’s shop, and that was saying nothing of the other supplies. Disinfectant, wound dressings, the lesser medications—there had to be a market for that kind of stuff, didn’t there?

Not to mention food. The War Office mostly sent fresh stuff, which Mrs. Patmore kept a weather eye on, now that rationing was in force, but they did get the odd crate of standard-issue—jam, bully beef, tea—which she mostly scorned as unworthy of her cooking talents. There were plenty of people who’d want it. 

Of course, if he got caught nicking stuff to sell on the black market, that would put paid to any hope of continuing in the RAMC. He’d be lucky to avoid court-martial. But perhaps he could hedge his bets—start stashing stuff somewhere in the house, where if he _was_ called on it, he could plausibly claim he’d just been getting it out of the way. But where? There weren’t a lot of unused corners left, and none he could think of where a pile of hoarded goods would be both unlikely to be noticed _and_ easy to explain. 

But the topic was already on his mind when, after dinner in the servants’ hall, the new housemaid—Jane, she was called—asked, “What about you, Sergeant? Have you started planning for after the war?”

In the circumstances, the question seemed pointed—they hadn’t even been talking about the end of the war; O’Brien had been asking insinuating questions about how Bates’s divorce was coming along. “Not really,” Thomas said, turning the page of the newspaper he was reading. “Who’s to say it really is ending?”

“All the papers?” O’Brien asked, snidely.

“They’ve said it before,” Thomas pointed out. 

Mrs. Patmore, sitting next to him—she’d settled in for a cup of tea as Daisy and the other kitchen girls cleared the table—spoke up. “I know what you should be doing.” 

Thomas glanced over at her. It didn’t seem _likely_ that she would have a useful idea on the subject, but then, you never knew. 

She continued, “I know what we should all be doing.”

“Oh yeah?” Thomas returned his attention to the paper. “What’s that?”

“Hoarding,” she proclaimed. 

Thomas was careful to show no outward signs of surprise. She couldn’t _possibly_ know that he had been thinking just that. If he’d actually started hiding stuff, she might have seen something, but Mrs. Patmore as a mind-reader was too unlikely even to consider. 

“It may be wrong,” Mrs. Patmore went on, “but this rationing is starting to bite. Even with everyone’s books, I had a battle to get enough sugar for the week.” 

A battle with whom? The Ministry of Food was quite firm on what they called “honoring the ration”—if you had the stamps, you got the goods—so Mrs. Patmore shouldn’t have had any trouble getting what the household was officially entitled to. Either the shop she was registered with was holding back, or she was trying to get more than she was entitled to. 

Either way, what it added up to was that Mrs. Patmore had a black market contact. Precisely the sort of person Thomas was going to need if he did decide to start selling off hospital supplies. “Are you suggesting the black market, Mrs. Patmore?” he said innocently. “I’m shocked.” 

“Oh, I doubt that very much,” Mrs. Patmore said—and, unfortunately, picked up her teacup and left, without saying anything else useful.

Before she’d been gone a minute, Anna said, reprovingly, “I hope you aren’t going to get mixed up in the black market.”

“Tell her,” Thomas retorted. Really, that was an entirely unfair accusation. “She’s the one who brought it up.”

Anna just sighed, but Bates chimed in, “You really shouldn’t. There are all kinds of unsavory sorts in that business.”

“I’ll be sure to pass that along to Mrs. Patmore,” he said. Honestly, if it wasn’t pouring rain, he’d go outside for a cigarette, just to get away from all this baseless slander. “I don’t know what you think I’d be doing with the black market. All I buy is cigarettes, and they’re not rationed.” So the hospital ones wouldn’t be worth much, unfortunately. 

“Luckily for you,” O’Brien said. 

“ _And_ you,” Thomas told her.

“I’m glad you know better than to get involved with that sort of thing,” Mrs. Hughes said, with an air of one putting an end to the topic. “Is there anything interesting in the paper?”

By the next day, the rain had dwindled to an drizzle, and then to a sort of heavy mist. After lunch, Thomas, Branson, Nurse Crawley, and Sister Crawley were in the car heading for Haxby Park. The rolled-up stretcher projected partway out of one of the rear windows, and would be very difficult to explain—but then, the composition of the party would also be difficult to explain, if anyone asked. 

At the entrance to the estate, Thomas hopped out and checked the gates, but they were, as he’d expected, locked. “We go on foot from here.” 

“Should we hide the car?” Nurse Crawley asked, as they all piled out. “In case anyone passes by?”

It was a little cloak-and-dagger, but perhaps not a bad idea—the last thing the encampment needed was anyone asking questions about what was going on at Haxby Park. Thomas exchanged a look with Branson, who said, “I’ll back it behind that hedge, so it won’t be quite as noticeable.”

Once he’d done so, they pushed their way through a thin spot of hedge and started up footpath. It was muddy from the heavy rain, which would add to the difficulty of carrying the loaded stretcher back. 

As they walked, Branson said, “Should Lady Sybil really be seeing…whatever it is we’re going to see?”

“I’m needed to help carry the stretcher, on the way back,” she explained, a bit tartly. 

Branson, who was carrying one end of the rolled-up stretcher along with Thomas, turned to give him a sharp look. 

Thomas sighed. “If I could lift stretchers, I’d be at the Front right now.” He explained his plan. “Branson, you’ll take one end. The other, I’ll get one side with my good arm, and the nurses will take turns on the other. It won’t be a very smooth ride, as the rest of you have no experience, but we’ve plenty of room and there’s no one shooting at us, so that’ll help.” Really, they ought to have practiced it, but it wasn’t as though he could order the two Crawley ladies to report for stretcher drill. 

“We’d better hope there’s no one shooting at us,” Branson said. “Isn’t there a caretaker?”

Thomas had asked the man with the bad shoulder about that. “An old gaffer,” he said. “Rheumaticky and deaf as a post. His cottage is round the opposite side of the big house, and he doesn’t often leave it.”

When they neared the stables, Sister Crawley forged ahead, to give the men some warning of their coming. They stood outside just long enough for Thomas to start thinking about a cigarette, until she came back and waved them in. 

There were more men about than there had been the other day, likely due to the miserable weather—their injuries would have stiffened up in the cold and damp, and there’d not be much farm work to be had. Some rested in the horse stalls; others gathered in small groups, smoking or working on various things. The scene reminded Thomas of a quiet stretch of trenches—except drier and cleaner. 

Nurse Crawley, however, was looking about with wide eyes, occasional gasping. “They live like this?” Thomas heard her asking Branson. 

Branson and Thomas exchanged a look. “Plenty of people live worse,” Branson said. “Compared to a lot of peasants’ cottages in Ireland, this is a luxury hotel.”

“Compared to a lot of the billets in France, too,” Thomas added. “I was expecting a lot worse.”

“But the Russells aren’t even using the house,” Nurse Crawley said. “Don’t you think, if we wrote them—”

“ _No_ ,” Thomas and Branson said, simultaneously. Branson continued, “They already know, my lady, that there are people in this country without houses. Just like they know that, in Ireland….”

Thomas stopped listening as Branson banged on for a while about Ireland and the perfidy of English landlords, noting absently that Nurse Crawley was listening with rapt attention. He wondered why an English landlord in Ireland would be worse than one in England, and also whether Nurse Crawley had noticed yet that her own father was one.

When they reached the horse-stall where Ted was living—or gasping out his last, at any rate—Nurse Crawley left Branson alone on his soapbox to rush in and minister to him. Sister Crawley took advantage of her distraction to pull Thomas aside. “I’m afraid I must go and give Ethel some bad news,” she said. “Please make sure that Sybil doesn’t follow.”

Curious about what the bad news could be, Thomas followed her partway to Ethel’s stall, stopping far enough away that he could turn Nurse Crawley back if she approached, but near enough that he’d hear any raised voices. 

The first thing he heard was Ethel saying, “I’m still not giving him up.”

“Yes,” Sister Crawley answered. “You were very clear on that point. That being so, I decided to check into Major Bryant’s whereabouts. I thought perhaps—well, never mind that.”

“Where—”

“I’m sorry to have to tell you that he’s been killed,” she said. 

There was a moment of silence, then a sharp inhalation of breath. “That’s it, then. I’m ruined.”

She already was, Thomas thought, but Sister Crawley said, “I had hoped that perhaps his commanding officer could bring some pressure to bear, but—well. There’s no hope of that now. I take it you’ve nothing in writing? An acknowledgement of paternity, or a promise of marriage?”

“If I’d anything like that, don’t you think I’d have used it by now?” Ethel said, with understandable frustration. 

Satisfied he’d heard all there was to hear, Thomas moved closer to Ted’s stall, where Nurse Crawley was talking animatedly about how much more comfortable he’d be at the hospital, and the various treatments they could try. He couldn’t tell, from her voice, whether or not she knew how unlikely it was that any of it would do any good. He _could_ tell that Ted was breathing a bit worse—that’d be the damp. 

As she talked, and Ted wheezed, Thomas drifted a bit closer, and eventually Nurse Crawley noticed him. “Sergeant,” she said. “Are we ready to go? Where’s Cousin Isobel gotten off to?”

“She’s speaking with one of the others,” Thomas said. Since he didn’t say _one of the other men_ , it was true. “But we might as well get the stretcher set up.”

They set it up in the aisle, where there was more room to maneuver, after Ted assured them he could walk that far. Thomas contrived to keep Nurse Crawley mostly facing the opposite way from Ethel’s place, and as they were finishing up, Sister Crawley emerged. “Is Ted ready to go?” she asked.

“As I’ll ever be, ma’am,” Ted said, from inside the stall—interrupted by a bout of coughing. 

“He really doesn’t sound good,” Nurse Crawley said to her, in an undertone.

Ted’s friend Duggan turned up to help him get to his feet and shuffle over to the stretcher. “I’ll look in on ye when we come down tomorrow for our dinner,” he told Ted. “At least—” He looked over at Sister Crawley.

“Visitors are allowed,” she said. 

Thomas wasn’t entirely sure that was what Duggan had been asking, but he accepted the answer.

Once Ted was situated, Thomas directed his team into position. He’d been unable to come to a definite conclusion about who should go where—as the path to the car went downhill, the foot end would bear more weight, but the head would be trickier—but managed to sound confident as he sent Branson to the head. That put Thomas at Ted’s left foot, which was the position of the squad leader in four-man stretcher drill. 

Not that anyone other than him had ever done stretcher drill in their lives. 

“Face forward, Nurse Crawley,” he told her. “You want to be able to see where you’re going.” That put her holding the handle of their end with her left hand, but it couldn’t be helped. “On one, reach for your handle. On two, grasp it. On three, we lift. Everybody understand?”

They did. “Sister Crawley, perhaps you’d better walk alongside, in case he needs any steadying.” 

Once they’d managed to pick up the stretcher without tipping Ted out onto the floor, Thomas gave them a fifty-fifty chance of getting him to the car without dropping him.

Thomas was a little surprised—though on reflection he supposed he shouldn’t have been—that Nurse Crawley quickly fell into step with him, and Branson did not, until he’d had it explained to him. That wasn’t the end of it, either. “Take smaller steps,” Thomas told him, as they left the stable and started down the footpath. “Match your stride to Nurse Crawley’s.” To forestall any protests from that quarter, he added, “Standard procedure—shortest man sets the pace.” 

Ted coughed, and Sister Crawley tucked the blankets more tightly around him.

There were a couple of near-misses, involving tight corners or steep bits, but they did manage to get Ted to the car without spilling him out. Once they had him tucked up inside, and the stretcher stowed—a bit of a puzzle now that they had five in the car instead of four—Branson pointed the car’s nose toward the village. 

Despite having decided to leave Major Clarkson to Sister Crawley’s devices, as they rode back, Thomas’s curiosity got the better of him. “What’re you going to tell the Major, ma’am?” he asked, turning round in the front seat to look at her. At her confused expression, he added, “About how we came to be fetching Ted to the hospital.”

“I mean to tell him that one of the other men told us he was ill, and when we went to check on him, we decided he’d be better off in the hospital,” she said. “And that we asked Branson to help convey him there from the camp.”

Branson stepped on the brakes, looking at Thomas with dismay. Thomas caught his eye and shook his head slightly, to forestall any vocal protest.

Sister Crawley, misunderstanding the problem, said, “I won’t say where the camp is, of course. If asked, I will simply say that we promised not to tell.”

“All right for some,” Branson murmured, setting the car in motion again.

“Though really,” she continued, “if you ask me, the War Office ought to requisition Haxby Park. It’s a disgrace for it to be standing empty, when it could serve as lodging, and a center for rehabilitation, for men like the ones living there now.”

Ted started to say, “Ma’am, you can’t—” But was interrupted by a bout of coughing. 

While Thomas was still trying to figure out how to get across to her what disaster that suggestion could bring down, Branson said, “Ma’am, if you draw attention to it, all it’s going to do is get those men tossed out into the cold.”

That was one way of putting it. 

Nurse Crawley said, “Don’t you think that ‘drawing attention’ to their situation might motivate the government to do something?”

“No,” Branson said, flatly. 

“It’s a very nice idea,” Thomas said tactfully, “but I don’t think the owners of Haxby Park will see it the way you do, ma’am.” _This isn’t fairyland_. Further discussion on the point being useless, he rolled on. “In more immediate terms, I can’t know where the camp is. Nor should Branson, for that matter.” Thomas wished he hadn’t thought of that, because his first plan had been to persuade Sister Crawley to leave him out of her story, and simply get out of the car before they got to the village. 

“But you do know,” Sister Crawley pointed out. 

Thomas considered pounding his head against the window. “Major Clarkson can’t know that I know, ma’am,” he said. “Or Lord Grantham that Branson knows. Because if we’re asked, we’ll have to say.”

“I’m not sure I would,” Branson said. He took his eyes off the road for a moment to glance conspiratorially at Nurse Crawley. “But I’m not quite ready to give up my job yet.” 

Nurse Crawley started to say, “Papa wouldn’t—” but then fell silent. After a moment, she said, “What about this. You and Sergeant Barrow brought Cousin Isobel and me far as the crossroads, and waited there while we went to the camp. We carried Ted back to the car ourselves.” She glanced at Sister Crawley. “I’m sure we could have, if we’d had to.”

Branson pointed out, “That still narrows down where the camp can be. Especially since we’d know how long you were gone.”

That, Thomas thought, might be over-complicating things. They weren’t trying to foil Scotland Yard—nor whatever department of the government was in charge of stopping Irish revolutionaries, which Thomas suspected was more to the point in the circumstances. But Nurse Crawley’s idea suggested an even simpler story, which would answer Branson’s objections. “Some of Ted’s friends brought him to the crossroads,” he said. “At a prearranged time. You’ve no idea where from, or how they managed it, and wouldn’t say if you did.”

Branson nodded. “All you told me was that you and Mrs. Crawley needed the motor,” he said. 

“And all the Ward Sister told me was that she needed help picking up a new patient,” Thomas added. To Branson, he continued, “In fact, I think we’d better scarper as soon as Ted and the ladies are out of the car. Best if we’re not there when Major Clarkson starts asking questions.” He’d know where to find them, of course, but Thomas didn’t think it was particularly likely he’d bother. 

Branson balked a little at that—he’d likely hoped to hang about mooning over Nurse Crawley—but he subsided when she said tartly that she was entirely capable of walking from the village to the house, whether it was damp out or not. 

They unloaded the ladies and the patient without incident. As he maneuvered through the village, Branson said, excessively casually, “You and Nurse Crawley talk sometimes, don’t you?”

“Sometimes,” Thomas agreed.

“Has she ever mentioned…plans for after the war?”

Unsure whether Branson was pumping him for information, or trying to find out what Thomas knew about a plan they’d agreed upon, Thomas decided his best course was to tell the truth. “Only that she isn’t looking forward to things going back to how they were.”

“Ah,” Branson said, with what could have been either relief or disappointment.

“I think she mentioned you were thinking of going back to Ireland,” Thomas added. He was nearly sure she had—he didn’t know where else he’d have gotten that idea—but he couldn’t remember when she’d said it.

“I might,” Branson said. Neatly avoiding further questions, he asked, “How about you?”

Now Thomas wished he hadn’t pressed on the subject. “Don’t know. Living in the stables at Haxby Park, maybe, if they haven’t been kicked out by the time the Army’s through with me.”

Branson started to laugh, then seemed to realize Thomas wasn’t joking. “Is your shoulder that bad?”

“Bad enough.” He stuck his arm out as far as it could go. “I can move it about that far. Not quite enough for waiting at table—I can manage the weight of the trays now, but I can’t get the right angle, unless I serve from the wrong side.” 

“What about hospital work?” Branson asked. 

“I haven’t looked into it yet.” He was afraid to, really. “I have a feeling not being able to lift stretchers is going to be a problem.”

Branson nodded. “It could.” There was a long moment of awkward silence. “They have a good set-up, at Haxby Park.”

“A lot better than I expected,” Thomas agreed. “Shame it won’t last.”

“That’s just the sort of thing Lenin wants to do in Russia,” Branson said. “Opening up the big estates to the working people.”

“Fine with me,” Thomas said. “Only when it comes time to string up the landowners, I think I’ll be in bed with a cold that day.”

“Yeah,” said Branson. “That’s the catch.” He hesitated. “I really didn’t think they’d kill the Tsar’s family. Especially the children.”

 _What did you think they were going to do—let them run away and come back with an army?_ More likely, he’d thought the prince and princesses would see the rightness of Bolshie cause, and not even try to avenge their father’s crown. Which just went to show that Lenin, or whoever it was, wasn’t the same sort of idiot as Branson.

After a moment or two, Branson rallied, and started talking about how, while Lady Sybil was naïve to think that the Russells would willingly give up their empty house as a hostel for down-on-their-luck ex-soldiers, “That she’d think they would shows how she’s not like the rest of them.”

Thomas didn’t argue, and when they reached Downton, hopped out of the car at the top of the drive, on the excuse that he’d best be checking what his men had gotten up to in his absence.

Not much, fortunately. Rawlins reported nothing out of the ordinary. “How did the secret mission go?” he asked, handing back the key to the drugs cabinet.

“Fine,” Thomas said. “Except she thinks—” Belatedly, he realized he couldn’t say what she thought, without saying where they’d been. “She has all sorts of grand ideas of what the War Office ought to do for crippled ex-soldiers.”

“That’s not new,” Rawlins observed.

“True.” It was a shame her plan for Haxby Park had no chance of coming off—he’d be ideally positioned to step into the role of Wardmaster, or whatever they’d decide to call it. If the whole thing wasn’t a pipe dream. 

He probably ought to talk to Sister Crawley about it anyway. Then when it didn’t happen, she might feel some obligation to help him find some other sort of job. Except that the very thought was exhausting. 

No sense borrowing trouble, he told himself. The war wasn’t over yet. 

#

“—so Edith thinks he really is Patrick, but she’s the only one who does. Well, Papa’s being circumspect on the subject.” Returning to the house from the village, Sybil had found her steps turning toward the garage instead of the house. Reasoning that Sergeant Barrow couldn’t really be expecting her back yet—Cousin Isobel had rather rushed her out, after getting Ted settled—she had stopped in to have a talk with Tom. Only now she found herself babbling about the badly-burned Canadian who had turned up claiming to be their long-lost cousin, who they’d thought died on the _Titanic_. 

Tom, at least, pretended to be interested. “Bit rough on Mr. Matthew, if it is really him,” he noted.

“Yes.” She wondered what Mary would do, if it was true and Patrick could prove it. She’d never been terribly enthusiastic about marrying Cousin Patrick, even when he’d been fairly good-looking, and she cared a great deal for Cousin Matthew—but she also cared a great deal about being Countess of Grantham. 

Silence stretched between them for a moment. “Have you given any more thought to—after the war?”

“I’ve scarcely thought about anything else.” 

“But you haven’t come up with an answer yet,” he supplied. 

“Not yet,” she admitted. She _did_ want to marry him—but whatever Mary thought, she wasn’t naïve enough not to realize what a different life it would be from the one she’d always expected. And while she wanted a different kind of life, as well, with this change, there would be no going back. “Have you spoken—written, I suppose—to any of your family, about it?” She knew what Mary thought of their plans, and could guess what the rest of her family would think, but Tom’s family were a complete mystery. 

“Well…I wrote my mother there was an English girl.” 

_Girl_ , not _lady_. It was sort of thrilling. “Yes?”

“And she didn’t take that part too badly, so then I said you were a Protestant. Once she’s got used to that, I’ll tell her the rest of it.” He gave her a sidelong look. “If there’s a reason to.”

 _There is_ , she wanted to say. _There’s every reason_. But common sense won out. “I just can’t decide until the war’s over,” she said instead. “It won’t be long now.”

“I’d rather wait for the right answer than rush to the wrong one,” he said. 

She was about to say, _That’s just how I feel_ , but realized just in time that by “right answer,” he meant _yes_. Her trouble was that she couldn’t feel sure of which answer was the right one. “I should get back,” she said. “Sergeant Barrow will be wondering where I’ve gotten to.”

“Right,” Tom said, drying his hands off on a rag. “Say, is his arm really that bad?”

“How bad?” she asked.

“He was talking about having to join them at Haxby Park when they chuck him out of the Army. I wondered if he was exaggerating.”

“He’s a pessimist,” Sybil said. “The range-of-motion in his shoulder is rather limited, but I’m sure there are loads of jobs he could do. He’s very clever.”

“Hm,” he said, his expression serious. 

Was he… _jealous_? Surely not. From the way Anna talked, all of the servants knew about him. “What?” she asked.

Tom shook his head. “Clever doesn’t always count for much. Not for people like us.”

#

When Thomas finished handing out morphine tablets for the afternoon medication round, there were only about half a dozen tablets rattling around in the bottom of the bottle.

 _Fuck_. 

“Something wrong, Sarge?” asked Griff, who’s been last in line.

“No,” Thomas said.

As Griff shrugged and ambled off, Thomas took down the clipboard that hung on the side of the cupboard. He’d have sworn he just opened that bottle the other day, but one day was quite a bit like another in this place. Maybe it had been longer ago than he thought. 

Taking the clipboard to his desk, he started by writing down the number of tablets he’d just issued, before he had a chance to forget what it was. Then he went up the sheet backwards, adding the numbers as he went, until he got to the line indicating a new bottle had been opened. 

The good news was that he _had_ gotten the days mixed up—he’d started the new bottle a day earlier than he’d thought.

The bad news was that the count was still a little short. Just a few tablets, but—he double-checked the paperwork—they’d been accounted for when Nurse Crawley did her inventory the day before yesterday. 

_Fuck_. 

He double-checked the night shift roster, even though he knew what he’d find: it had been the same last night and the night before: Prentiss, with Griff on call. Prentiss hadn’t had night duty in the last inventory period, but Griff had been on call for a few days in there. 

Griff’s only serious injury was his missing eye, which he’d always said didn’t hurt. 

_Fuck_. 

Nurse Crawley’d had the key, of course, to do the inventory. 

And Rawlins. Thomas had given it to him yesterday, when he was out at Haxby Park. 

It _could_ be Prentiss. He was a gas case, and morphine suppressed coughing. Thomas didn’t remember having given him the key at any point last month, but he might have—that was another thing they really ought to be keeping a record of, now that he thought about it. 

_Fuck_. 

Had he really counted the tablets left in the bottle, or had he just thought it seemed like fewer than it ought to be? Thomas already knew the answer, but he got up and checked anyway. Six, like he’d thought. 

_Fuck_.

“Sergeant?” One of the VADs appeared in the doorway. “Captain Deveraux’s stump looks a bit funny. Could you take a look?”

Relieved, Thomas re-locked the cabinet, saying, “Certainly.”

There was nothing wrong with Captain Deveraux’s stump—except for not having a hand attached to it, which was nothing new—but once Thomas was out on the wards, plenty of other people turned out to have questions only he could answer. For the rest of the day, he managed to put the matter of the missing morphine almost entirely out of his mind. 

Almost. 

At the end of the shift, after the bedtime medication round, he counted the tablets left in the newly-opened bottle, before handing the key over to Prentiss. No more were missing—not that any should have been, since Thomas had had the key in his possession all day. 

He’d count them again in the morning, and if any were missing—well. Then he’d know. 

He had a sick feeling there wouldn’t be, though. 

When he sat down at the servants’ hall table to wait for dinner to start, Anna immediately started talking about Bates. A date had been set for his appearance in divorce court, but now Vera had demanded that he come to London and meet her beforehand. “She refuses to tell the lawyer what it is she plans to accuse him of in court, but she says she’ll tell him face-to-face.”

“Why?” Thomas asked. 

“I was hoping you’d have some idea.” 

Thomas thought about it. “Not unless she plans to murder him while they’re still married.”

“I think that’s going a little far, even for her,” Anna said. 

Thomas agreed. “Er…seduce him, maybe?” He’d rather not think about Bates being seduced by anyone, but it seemed slightly more realistic. “I don’t know if that makes a difference, when it comes to divorce.”

“I suppose she could think it would,” Anna said doubtfully. “But I can’t imagine he’d, er, fall for it.”

She was probably right about that—Bates must have liked something about his soon-to-be-ex-wife at some point, but the bloom had gone off the rose quite some time ago. The only other explanation Thomas could think of was some sort of blackmail, but she was already doing that, so—“Oh,” he said. “What if what she’s threatening to reveal in court would get _both_ of them into trouble? And she’s trying to get him to back down before she has to?”

Anna looked puzzled for a moment, then…. “Oh.” She frowned. “Would she?”

“I don’t know her,” Thomas reminded her. “Ask Bates.”

Bates showed up just then. “Ask me what?”

Anna looked meaningfully toward the door, then, when he didn’t get up, said, “Thomas, weren’t you saying you wanted a smoke before dinner?”

Oh, that was extremely subtle. “Right,” he said. “Nearly forgot.”

They all trooped outside. Thomas took his time lighting a cigarette. 

“Well?” asked Bates. 

“Go ahead,” Thomas told Anna. 

Giving him an exasperated look, she said, “Thomas thinks that what Vera’s threatening to say in court—”

“I never said I thought it,” Thomas interrupted. “It was just an idea I had.”

“What is it?” Bates asked, a trifle impatiently. 

“How much trouble would you be in,” Anna said, “if she told them in court that she really stole the silver all those years ago, and your confession was a lie?”

Bates turned to stare at him. “ _Really_?”

“You don’t even want to hear his first two guesses,” Anna said. 

“I’d be in a lot less trouble than she would be,” Bates said. “But she might think I’d stay married to her to avoid going back to prison for perjury. Only I never caught on to what she was hinting at, so now she’s got to spell it out. And she can’t put it in writing, or tell the lawyer, because then I’d have proof that she was the real thief.” He nodded. “It holds together.”

“Only if she’s mad enough to go to prison herself just for the chance of you going as well,” Anna pointed out. 

“I wouldn’t entirely put it past her,” Bates said. “But I expect she’s counting on me not to call her bluff.” 

“Will you?” Anna asked.

“If it comes to it,” Bates said, “yes. A prison sentence _ends_ —and I can’t imagine I’d get a very long one, for confessing to a crime to spare my wife. But I think I’d better go down and talk to her, after all. She’ll see that I’m not going to give in, no matter what.” He glanced over at Thomas, who was trying to look as though he wasn’t listening avidly. “She did steal the hotel register, by the way. The only bit you got wrong is that she took the entire book, not just the pages her…man signed.”

Of course, Thomas realized. A woman could carry a big handbag, or a shopping basket, or something. 

Bates continued, “But she didn’t get the first one, that my friend had moved to the back office. My lawyer says that that, along with the photographs, will be enough to prove she was unfaithful.”

“Good,” Thomas said, since they seemed to be expecting him to say something. He considered asking what _they_ thought he ought to do about the missing morphine. Perhaps there was some perfectly straightforward solution that he wasn’t thinking of, just as neither of them had been able to come up with any explanation for Vera’s behavior.

But before he could quite make up his mind to raise the subject, they started heading back indoors. By the time Thomas had finished his cigarette and joined them, they were talking about something else. “Lady Edith believes him,” Anna said. “Lady Mary doesn’t. I’m not sure if Lady Sybil has an opinion.”

“His lordship hasn’t said much,” Bates said. “Except that he’s asking Murray to look into it. But I gather Mr. Matthew is…distressed.” 

After a few more moments of listening failed to shed any light on what they were talking about, Thomas finally resorted to asking. 

“Major Gordon,” Anna said. 

There was a convalescent home patient with that name and rank, but Thomas had no idea why the family would care one way or the other about some story he’d told. “The Canadian?” he asked. 

Anna and Bates exchanged looks. “Haven’t you heard?” Anna asked. “He’s saying he’s Mr. Patrick.”

“Patrick Crawley,” Bates amplified. 

They quickly brought him up to date on the story the man was peddling—it involved losing his memory in the sinking of the _Titanic_ , only to have it suddenly return when he’d been blown up at Passchendaele. In the interim, he’d supposedly built a new life in Canada. 

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Thomas said. 

“Then you’re in agreement with Lady Mary,” Anna said. 

“I’m surprised Lady Edith fell for it.” Thomas saw a bit of her, in the convalescent home, and thought she was more sensible than that. 

Anna sighed. “She was in love with him,” she said. “With the real Mr. Patrick, I mean.”

“Thought he had an understanding with Lady Mary,” Thomas said.

“He did,” Anna confirmed. “Only this…Gordon is saying he really loved her, all along.”

 _Now_ he could see why she fell for it. “Wonder how he figured that out?” It could have been a shot in the dark, he supposed, that landed better than Gordon could have anticipated. What comparatively-plain middle sister _wouldn’t_ be flattered to hear that her elder sister’s all-but-fiancé had preferred her all along? 

“One explanation is that he really is Mr. Patrick,” Bates pointed out dryly. 

“Lady Edith says he remembers lots of things from when they were growing up,” Anna added. “Only Lady Mary says they’re all things he could have guessed.” 

Almost automatically, Thomas began thinking of ways they could catch him out. It was fairly easy—Thomas knew from experience—to have a lengthy conversation without mentioning any concrete, checkable facts. If the other person was not being so cautious, you could probably use the same method to give the impression of shared reminiscences, when really all you’d done was agree with what the other person said. And now that Gordon had been in the house a while, he’d probably picked up all sorts of convincing details. But nobody remembered _everything_ from childhood, so if they asked him specific questions, he could always claim to have forgotten. 

What would be harder to explain, Thomas realized, would be if he agreed with things that _weren’t true_. “Right,” he said. “All Lady Mary has to do is make up some story about their childhood, and see if he ‘remembers’ it.” 

“What do you mean?” Anna asked.

“I mean, he’s got to be just playing along whenever Lady Edith says, ‘Do you remember this,’ ‘What about the time when we that.’ Right?”

“If he isn’t Mr. Patrick, yes,” Anna admitted. 

“So Lady Mary does that, only the story isn’t true. It should be stuff like a child would remember—‘The time we had a picnic and a dog stepped on the cake and we all cried.’ That sort of thing.” 

Now Anna was nodding. “I see what you mean. It would have to be several stories—if it’s just one, he could say something similar must’ve happened somewhere else, and he got confused.”

“Good point.” 

The other two talked about a few more refinements and variations on the plan—while Thomas tried _not_ to think about ways to trick the morphine thief into revealing himself. 

He’d already come up with two, maybe three, by the time Branson showed up—for some reason—and started banging on about the German Republic. He was still on it when Carson and Mrs. Hughes showed up and dinner started.

“No,” Carson pronounced, when Branson paused for breath. “I don’t think so, Mr. Branson. The Kaiser will go, I grant you, and maybe the Crown Prince, too, but there’ll be a regency. Mark my words. Monarchy is the lifeblood of Europe.”

It was the custom of the servants’ hall that, once Carson had had his say, a subject was closed. But Branson didn’t hold with that tradition any more than he did with the monarchy—it was one of the few things Thomas liked about him. He was still disputing the point when, of all people, Colonel Grantham appeared in the doorway. 

Branson did stand up with the rest of them. Just as well, probably—Thomas didn’t fancy seeing Carson explode tonight.

But the news Colonel Grantham had come to deliver was more explosive than anything Branson could have done. “I’m sorry to disturb you,” he said. “But I’ve just heard news from the War Office, and I thought you’d all like to know that the war is over.”

Thomas’s stomach dropped. He barely heard the others’ glad cries—“Thank God,” and so on—or Lord Grantham explaining that the ceasefire would begin at 11 AM on the 11th. The day after tomorrow, that was. 

“Why can’t it begin right now?” Mrs. Patmore asked. 

It was a reasonable enough question, but nobody answered it. Would they still make patrols, tonight and tomorrow night? In the morning, would they stand-to, for the few minutes of intense rifle fire that some of the men called the “Morning Hate”? 

Would they do it on the morning of the 11th? 

Hardly anybody actually got killed during the Morning Hate—everyone on both sides knew it was coming, and all you had to do was keep your head down—but there was always a chance. What a way to go that would be. 

Lord Grantham went on to tell them that they’d gather in the main hall to “mark the moment,” adding that he expected all of them to be there.

He couldn’t really order Thomas to attend, but doubtless many of the patients would want to, and the orderlies. Thomas’s absence would be conspicuous. He’d have to get through it, somehow. 

The end of the war. 

Christ. Lord Grantham left, and someone started pouring wine. Thomas held his glass out, automatically. “To peace,” someone said, raising a glass.

Thomas echoed it numbly. “To peace.” 

It was good; of course it was. All of the killing and dying and suffering was over—well, most of the suffering. He couldn’t be sorry about that; he wasn’t a monster. 

He just felt like he was standing at the bottom of a mountain, watching an avalanche slide toward him. 

“Are you all right?” Anna asked him, once she had finished hugging Jane and Daisy and God knew who else.

He nodded. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

She bit her lip. “You said—”

He knew what he’d said. “It hasn’t hit me yet.” Downing the rest of his glass, he added, “I’d better go tell Griff and Prentiss.” They’d want to know.

By the time Thomas got upstairs, Lady Edith and Nurse Crawley were circulating among the patients, sharing the news, and Prentiss and Griff had been drawn by the commotion. The Crawley sisters did seem to be making some effort not to wake those who’d already gone to sleep—but of course their fellow-patients did not share their scruples, and in short order everyone was up and about and talking excitedly. Thomas allowed himself to be thumped on the back, shaken by the hand, and similar indignities, and said things like, “Yes, quite,” and “Thank God,” in response to remarks like, “I never thought I’d see the day,” and “It’s finally over.” 

Once the news had been spread throughout the house, Prentiss asked if he could, “Run down to my billet, Sarge, and tell them all.”

In the circumstances, Thomas could hardly refuse. “But straight there and straight back. If your billet-mates want to tell everybody else, they can do it without you. And mind you’re still on duty,” he added. Already, the officers were delving into their private stocks of whiskey and so on, toasting the occasion. 

In fact, shortly after Prentiss grabbed his greatcoat and cap and rushed off, Thomas found himself having a glass of whiskey pressed on him by one of the officers—it was the sort of moment where that lot liked to tell themselves that distinctions of rank were unimportant. Well, he _wasn’t_ on duty, technically. “Thank you, sir,” he said, accepting it. “To your health—and peace, of course.”

“To peace,” the officer echoed. 

It didn’t take long for the general jubilation to die down. Some of the officers carried on celebrating—Thomas suspected an edge of mania to their good cheer—in the recreation room, but the rest drifted into the main hall or back to the wards, gradually settling in small knots to talk about friends who _hadn’t_ lived to see the day, or what their units back in France might be doing on this night, or how strange it would be to go back to their normal lives. 

It was the latter that Griff wanted to talk about, when Thomas found him fetched up against one of the pillars in the main hall, a half-finished drink in one hand. He moved to get rid of it when he saw Thomas noticing that he had it, but Thomas waved him off, with a “Just so you’re in a fit state to handle it if any of _them_ overdo it.” 

He settled back against the pillar, taking a sip. “So that’s it, then.” 

“Yeah,” Thomas agreed. 

“How much longer do you suppose they’ll need us here?”

Thomas shook his head. “They haven’t told me anything.” He’d have to ask Major Clarkson, in the next day or two, if he didn’t volunteer the information. Everyone would want to know.

“Typical.” He turned his glass in his hand. “This wasn’t a bad job, all things considered.” 

“What’d you do before the war?” Funny how Thomas had never wondered that before. Griff had been an artilleryman before he was an RAMC orderly; that had seemed like all he needed to know.

“I was a printer. Well. Journeyman printer.” 

Thomas wasn’t sure what he would have guessed, but not that. “Can you do that with one eye?”

“Think so,” Griff said. “Guess I’ll find out.” Gulping down the rest of his drink, he added, “What I’m wondering is what the girls will think of it, now the war’s over. Bloke in uniform, with an eye patch, it’s a bit dashing, innit? Not quite the same in a printer’s coverall.”

“I expect you’ll manage,” Thomas said dryly. 

About then, a crash from the recreation room sent Thomas hurrying over there to find out what had happened. One of the revelers, it seemed, had attempted to climb up on one of the card tables, in order to make a speech. Fortunately, he hadn’t been seriously injured in the collapse, but he’d acquired a impressive number of scrapes and splinters, the cleaning and bandaging of which kept Thomas occupied until Prentiss got back.

After reminding the group in the recreation room that others in the house would want to go to sleep soon, and would appreciate some quiet along with their peace, and instructing Prentiss and Griff to be alert for further signs of overindulgence, Thomas trudged up to bed. 

Settling in his armchair, with his boots up on the windowsill, he lit a cigarette and allowed himself to imagine the scene if this day had come when they’d all still been in the barn at the 47th. He’d have had a couple of drinks with the Wardmaster straight off, and he’d likely know, and tell Thomas, what they ought to expect out of the next few weeks. Then he’d have stumbled his way back to the barn and found the party in full swing. Someone would give him a tin cup full of terrible wine, and probably Manning would start _singing_ , or something.

And then somebody would bring up _Lamb_ , and Thomas would go outside to sit on his block of rubble and smoke, and look up at the stars, until Rawlins came and crowded in beside him. 

He fumbled open his cigarette case, and looked at Peter. “The war’s over,” he told him. “It’s over, and I’m still alive. I suppose I ought to be glad about that. You’d want me to be. But—”

Abruptly, he snapped the case shut. 

The next day got off to a slow start. Few of the patients wanted to get up at the usual time, and few of the staff were inclined to chivvy them. The rote phrases about how wonderful it was that it was all over, finally, thank God, had grown decidedly stale, but anyone who dared speak of ordinary things did so with a guilty air. 

With everything that had been going on, it slipped Thomas’s mind that he’d meant to count the morphine tablets first thing in the morning, but when he finally remembered and got round to it, after lunch, he found none missing. Feeling heavy-hearted, replaced the bottle and went back to his desk, leaving the key dangling in the lock.

The linen shelves had been restocked that morning—news of peace having no effect on the laundry schedule, apparently—so Thomas’s desk was more-than-usually hidden from view. Over the course of the afternoon, there was a steady stream of people in and out of the orderlies’ room, but none of them went near the drugs cabinet, and so Thomas didn’t take notice of who any of them were.

Several hours passed, and Thomas had nearly run out of things he could plausibly occupy himself with, when finally a set of footsteps paused by the drugs cabinet. He heard the slight creak of the hinge, and the rattle of the bottle being taken off the shelf. 

He almost didn’t look. The war was over; did it really matter? 

He stood up and, moving as quietly as Army boots would allow, peered around the side of the linen shelves. 

“Oh!” Rawlins jumped about half a mile, stuffing something in his pocket as he came down. “Barrow, I didn’t see you there. Somebody left the key in the lock.”

“I know,” Thomas said grimly. 

Rawlins looked away. “Barrow….”

He held out his hand. Rawlins put the key in it. 

He kept holding out his hand, and after a moment, Rawlins, looking away again, dipped into his pocket and handed over a few morphine tablets. “I just need them to get to sleep sometimes,” he said. “I don’t take them when I’m on duty.”

“Good,” Thomas said. He went around Rawlins and shut the door to the room. He only ever did that when somebody was getting a bollocking, so none of the others would interrupt for anything other than a dire emergency. 

Since Rawlins was his friend, Thomas waved him into one of the armchairs instead of making him brace up in front of the desk. “Is it your leg?” he asked. A lot of their amputees had pain in their missing limbs. 

“Yes,” Rawlins said. “And I’ve tried asking the MOs for something, but they just say it’s all in my head.”

“I know,” Thomas said. That was what they were supposed to tell the amputees when they asked for morphine. 

“It helps, though. I know they say it can’t, but it does.”

“I know.” A lot of the patients said that. 

“And I can’t buy it because the druggists aren’t allowed to sell it to anyone in a uniform.”

“I know.” 

Rawlins sighed. “Do you have to tell Major Clarkson?”

He should. Thomas knew he should. “Not if you stop.” He’d have to stop giving Rawlins the key, too. Since Rawlins nearly always had it when Thomas was out, they were bound to notice, but it couldn’t be helped. 

Rawlins nodded tightly. “I’ll stop,” he promised. “I know I shouldn’t…it really does hurt, though.” 

“I’m sure it does. Is there anything else that helps?”

“Drinking,” Rawlins said. “But it takes a lot. The morphine leaves me in a better state to work the next day.”

Thomas bet it did. “Headache powders don’t do anything?”

“No. A bromide’ll put me out for an hour or two, but then the pain wakes me back up.”

He’d seen that, too, with patients. “I’ll talk to Clarkson.” At a wordless sound of protest from Rawlins, Thomas added, “I’ll tell him patients are asking.” That wasn’t a lie; they did ask. “Maybe the RAMC’s come up with something new. And then if there is anything, I can bring up that you’ve been having trouble too. All right?”

“All right,” he agreed. “I bet they haven’t, though.”

Thomas didn’t think it was terribly likely, either, but he didn’t have any other ideas. “I’ll ask the Ward-Sister, too. She’s more interested in new treatments than he is.” Since he wasn’t working night shifts at the hospital anymore, Thomas didn’t have the opportunity to read Major Clarkson’s medical journals, but Sister Crawley did. And he’d bet she was scanning them avidly for any news about spinal injuries. 

“Right,” Rawlins said glumly. 

Thomas wasn’t feeling too cheerful, either, but he made an effort. “You’ll probably be going home soon, anyway. Civilian doctor might not know morphine’s not supposed to help.”

He brightened a little. “True.” 

They talked about the end of the war for a bit, and their friends back in France. “Cat’s in for a shock,” Thomas noted. He’d likely be all right—the civilian population would return, when the soldiers left. Somebody would give him a home, but his days of condensed milk and sardines on demand were numbered.

“Plank used to talk about bringing him back to England when it was over,” Rawlins said. 

“How?” Thomas asked. He didn’t think much of Plank’s chances of getting on a troop-ship carrying a cat basket, even if he could somehow get the cat into one. 

“I’m not sure,” Rawlins admitted. “He tried to stuff him in your rucksack when you left, but he didn’t like it.”

“How surprising.” Thomas supposed he’d better be glad it hadn’t worked. He could just about imagine the cat in the railway car that had taken him to the Base Hospital, bouncing around like a table-tennis ball. 

Apart from that, the day—the last full day of the war—was filled mostly with ordinary things. Getting the patients their meals and cleaning up after them. Changing their dressings and going on rounds with Major Clarkson. Taking delivery of a supplies shipment and putting it all away.

Like any other day.

#

Thomas came down to dinner that night looking subdued, even for him. Anna wondered if the news had now “hit him,” as he’d put it. 

Even though his minor breakdown had been overshadowed by Mr. Matthew and poor William’s miraculous return, and then by the news of Ethel’s pregnancy, she’d never quite forgotten hearing him say, _once it’s over, the dead will really be dead_. 

It was a strange thing to say, on the face of it, but she thought she understood. While the war was going on, everything was temporary, “for the duration.” Life wouldn’t go back to exactly how it was—life never did—but now that it was over, they would start to find out what the new world, the postwar world, looked like.

For everyone, that new world would have gaps in it. Holes. For Anna, they would be fairly small. William was gone, and she would miss him, but she’d never expected to know him for the rest of her life—he’d have moved on to a new job, or married and gone back to his father’s farm, or—

Well. His loss was a yawning chasm in some people’s lives, but only a small one in hers. As was the matter of Mr. Matthew’s legs, and Lady Mary’s vague yet dire confidences about what it meant for their married life. 

But Thomas had lost Mr. Fitzroy, and all those other people whose names he only mentioned when he was overcome with strong emotion, but who had apparently been important to him. 

“All right?” she asked him, when he sat down beside her. 

He nodded. “Except nobody wants to do any work, now the war’s over, but the patients still insist on eating and having their dressings changed.”

“It has been difficult to concentrate on ordinary things,” she agreed. 

“Is that what it is?” He shook his head. “Won’t be my problem for too much longer, at any rate.”

“Have you had any ideas about what you’re going to do about a job?” she asked. 

“No.”

She waited, and finally he elaborated, slightly.

“I’ll have to talk to Major Clarkson. He was too busy today.” 

“Do you mean to stay in the RAMC, then?” Or maybe he hoped to work for Dr. Clarkson? That didn’t seem terribly likely—he’d never needed an orderly before. 

“They could have use for me for a while yet,” he said, with a touch of irritation. “That’s what I need to ask him about.”

She pressed no further, and changed the subject. “Lady Mary liked your idea for catching out Major Gordon….”

#

“I think while the clock strikes, we should all make a silent prayer,” Colonel Grantham said.

They were all lined up in the main hall—and getting the patients there had been a bit of a job, Thomas didn’t mind saying. It was mostly the more badly-injured who were still in the house; a lot of the ambulatory cases had signed themselves out to attend celebrations likely to be more raucous than the one here.

But there were a couple of dozen patients in the main hall, along with the staff, and the household staff, and the family. Thomas stood between Major Clarkson and Rawlins. 

Grantham continued, “To mark the finish of this terrible war, and what that means for each and every one of us. Let us remember the sacrifices that have been made, and the men who would never come back, and give them our thanks.”

Could there be anyone today who _wasn’t_ thinking of the men who would never come back? Was there anyone that lucky? 

Colonel Grantham might have needed the reminder. All he’d lost was a footman. 

The moment the clock struck, Colonel Grantham stood to attention, and everyone else in uniform did the same. They stayed that way as the clock struck again, and again, ringing out its cheerful death-knell.

Thomas had never hated a clock more. 

At last it was over, and the assembly let out its collective breath. Colonel Grantham made a few more anodyne remarks, and everyone fell out, talking quietly. Most of the servants headed immediately for the green baize door that would take them back downstairs, but Anna darted over and squeezed his arm. “Are you all right?” she asked. 

“I’m fine,” he said, as Major Clarkson, who was starting to leave, turned to look at him. “And I’m on duty.”

“Of course you are,” she said, stepping away. “I’ll see you later, then.”

He hurried to catch up with Major Clarkson, who said, “I suppose the rest of the patients are at the pub, Sergeant?”

“Yes, sir. Most of them.” He hesitated. 

“What?”

“A few took their things with them, sir.” One of those was Major Gordon, which ought to clear up any lingering questions as to his real identity. 

Major Clarkson stopped and stared at him. “I don’t suppose you could have stopped them?”

“Those who asked if they could go home, we told them we’d had no orders on the subject and they’d best wait. Short of putting guards on the doors, which we haven’t the men for, sir, I’m not sure what else I can do.”

“No,” Clarkson acknowledged, resuming his walk down to the village. “But they are Absent Without Leave. In the circumstances, I doubt the Army will make an issue of it, but make a list of any who aren’t back by tonight. None of the men have left, I trust.”

“No, sir. But they have been asking what’s going to happen next, with the convalescent home and everything.”

“You’ll know when I know,” he said. “There was a circular this morning, but all it said was that casualties continued up until the moment of ceasefire, and that we should expect them to move through the chain of evacuation as normal.”

Typical. “So we just carry on as usual until we’re told otherwise,” Thomas concluded.

“Yes. Any officers with medical panels this week should report for them as scheduled, and we’ll be getting our convoy on Thursday, as usual. But be careful how you say that—we don’t want people getting the idea that things will change next week. They may, but they may not.”

“I understand, sir.” He hesitated. “I understand that Lady Grantham is eager to have her house back.”

“I understand that as well,” Clarkson said. “But she has assured me that she doesn’t expect any patient to be sent away before he is ready.” Now it was his turn to hesitate. “The need for convalescent facilities will…decrease rapidly, once the demobilization is underway. But the RAMC in general is likely to demobilize more gradually than some of the other corps.”

“Yes, sir.” _What about_ me _?_ He couldn’t ask. “I do have the impression that some of the men are quite eager to move on, but others are enjoying the work and would just as soon continue as long as there’s a need.”

“I hope that I’ll be able to take that into account when it’s time to begin discharges,” Major Clarkson said. “But I’ve received no instructions yet about how that will proceed.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

That took them just about to the village, so Thomas moved on to his next point. “Speaking of carrying on as usual, I’ve been wondering whether there’ve been any new developments in managing hysterical pain in amputees.” 

Clarkson glanced over at him. “Is that where our missing morphine is going?”

“Many of them are rather insistent that it helps,” Thomas said. “I believe I’ve gotten the point across that there can be no more exceptions, but I promised I’d find out if there was anything else we could offer the poor blighters.” 

“Not really,” Major Clarkson said. “There are some reports that electro-therapy helps, but it’s likely to be a placebo effect, and in any case, we’re not set up to provide it. The end of the war should allow for more research into it, along with other aspects of rehabilitating wounded men.”

“Yes, sir.” It very well might, but that didn’t help Rawlins much now. 

“Hypnosis,” Major Clarkson added. “And psycho-analysis. There have been reported successes with both. Again, we can’t offer them, but the gentlemen can be urged to seek it out once they’re discharged.”

“Sir.”

The rest of the way to the hospital, Clarkson rambled on about how morphine was much more dangerous and addicting than previously thought, and how he should probably do a patient-education lecture on the subject before the patients started being discharged _en masse._ He was still on it when they entered the hospital, and Sister Crawley hurried up to them. 

Once Thomas had filled her in on what they were discussing and why, she added another to the Major’s list of not-very-helpful suggestions. “Placebo treatment can be very effective with hysterical conditions,” she said. “Since the pain is in the patient’s mind, if he believes he’s receiving a strong pain medication, it will often go away.”

Thomas couldn’t help thinking of the chap with the broken leg—what had his name been?—that only Rouse had believed in. “Yes, ma’am.”

She continued, to Major Clarkson, “Mr. Banks isn’t doing at all well. I was hoping you could take a look at him.”

The Major sighed, and set off across the ward, to where a set of screens had been put up around a bed. “Is that…?” Thomas asked.

Sister Crawley nodded. “Ted. Mr. Duggan is with him.”

Thomas followed, figuring he might as well have a look before he started back up to the house. But when they rounded the screens, a second or two after Major Clarkson, Duggan was saying, “Too late, sir. It happened during the Armistice, if you can believe it. I turned to him after the bell stopped, and said, ‘Did you ever think we’d live to see the day?’ But then I saw that he…hadn’t.” 

“I’m very sorry,” Major Clarkson said. 

“I know you did everything you could, sir,” Duggan said. “And you too, ma’am. I only wish—” He sighed lugubriously. “Best go and tell the rest.” He glanced at the body. “Er….”

“I’ll speak to the vicar, about arrangements,” Sister Crawley said. “If you, or someone, is able to stop by tomorrow, I’ll be able to give you the details of when the service will be held.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Duggan said, and shuffled out. He was accompanied by Major Clarkson, who Thomas heard asking something about whether any of the other men were unwell.

Thomas went and fetched a wheeled stretcher, and he and Sister Crawley loaded Ted Banks onto it. “He won’t be the last,” she said, drawing a sheet up over him. “The war is over, and thank God that it is, but it will go on killing men for years.” 

Thomas nodded, and started pushing the stretcher to the morgue. 


	31. Interlude:  The Peter Letters, part 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to post this section of letters by itself, instead of along with a full-length chapter, since it's a very eventful one!

_11 November, 1918_

_Armistice Day. We have tried to keep our celebrations muted, in deference to our hosts, but we are all thrilled to pieces, of course. We had a minute’s silence and a prayer at the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour. One of the German nurses wept—not, she assured us, because her country had lost, but because it was finally over, and her father and one of her brothers were still alive. We assured her, in turn, that we are happy not so much because we have won (although we are glad of that, too), but because we will finally be going home._

_18 November, 1918_

_Word has leaked out that the Armistice terms call for the immediate release of French and British prisoners. Our German MO has told us that repatriation will be handled by the Red Cross, and that they will be starting at the Front and working their way east. We are to be patient, and continue doing what we’re doing. Capt. Kelly and the rest of our MOs—French and British—say that he is right, and emphasizes that our patients continue to need us._

_The patients, however, are getting fractious, especially those who are nearly recovered and ambulatory. We—patients and staff—are now officially allowed to leave the hospital, although our hosts advise against it, as the sentiment of the local population is against us. A few have ventured out, though, and report nothing worse than being spat at once or twice—and being surrounded by hordes of ragged children begging for sweets or bread._

_3 December, 1918_

_I write to you from Belgium! We have just crossed over the frontier and have been given shelter by a peasant couple. Most of us will have to sleep in the barn, the house not being large enough for us all, but at present we are all seated around the fireside, while the peasant woman cooks us a lovely supper. (We have agreed to combine our supplies and all dine together—civilian supplies are as short here as they are in Germany, so our hosts are as glad of our tinned meat, etc., as we are of the chance to have some real home cooking, and vegetables that don’t come out of a tin.)_

_Now that I have set the scene, I should tell you how I came to be here. As I said, the patients were fractious, and a group of them, taking advantage of the liberty to explore the hospital environs, spotted a captured French motor-ambulance. After reporting this discovery to the rest of us back in the ward, they found out that it—or in any case one just like it—was captured along with two of our French comrades, one MO and one orderly._

_This MO is the one who has been in this hospital for the duration, and has not been able to write to his family at all, so he is as utterly frantic to see them as I am to see you. Likewise, a number of our British officer-patients are in no mood to wait around to be repatriated at the Germans’ leisure._

_I suppose you see where this is going. Dearest, we re-captured the ambulance, in a mixed party of British and French. The Germans, though not at all pleased, were forbidden by the Armistice from using force to stop us—or believed they were, in any case. It would only hold, at most, a dozen of us—and only that many if there were no stretcher cases among the passengers—so the MOs and the highest-ranking patients met in conference to discuss what to do._

_They decided that the party should include some medical personnel—since it was an ambulance, and since some wounded would be going—and that it should be evenly divided between French and British. Each country selected five patients to go—based on state of health, length of captivity, ability to drive, knowledge of geography, and various other qualifications. The French medical personnel, by unanimous consent, agreed to send the MO whose ambulance it was, which left us to select an orderly._

_I was desperate to go, of course, but since several of the others had been in captivity longer, I didn’t think much of my chances. Beyond that, if medical services were called for, they would probably rather have a man with two arms. However—as you will have guessed from the opening of this letter—the others chose me to go._

_There was less wrangling over this than I would have thought—of course, everyone wanted to go, but no one wanted to argue that he deserved it more than the rest, so when someone pointed out that the rest of them had at least had news from home, while I had no idea whether my beloved brother was alive or dead, they all agreed that made sense and was as good a reason as any that I should be the lucky one._

_The ones staying behind loaded us up with supplies and money—particularly money; inflation in Germany has gone completely insane, and you can scarcely buy anything—and we pointed the nose of our ambulance to the west, and started driving._

_The roads were absolutely choked with returning soldiers, freight of all kinds, civilian refugees hoping some other part of Germany might be better than the one they’re in, and so on, but we were allowed to proceed more or less unmolested. We were stopped by German civilian police a few times, but we simply explained that we were Allied medical personnel, repatriating wounded Allied prisoners under the terms of the Armistice, and they let us go. (We managed to get our hands on a copy of the Armistice terms, so when they demanded papers, we showed them that. It worked, I suppose, because none of them had any idea what sort of papers we ought to have had, if we were an officially-organized repatriation party and not an ad-hoc one.) Getting petrol was the biggest problem we had—you can’t buy it—but since we had food to trade, we were always able to find someone with some they were willing to part with, before we had altogether run out._

_The peasant woman is dishing up our supper, so I shall sign off. I hope desperately that we will soon share a cigarette together, but for now, light one for me._

_Your Peter_

_4 December, 1918_

_Forgive my penmanship, as I write this from the back of the ambulance, as we are driven by Lt. W. of the RAF. If you were here, you would say that now we have a good idea how he came to crash his ‘plane, but I will say that learning to fly a ‘plane must develop some habits which are not entirely conducive to operating a vehicle on the ground._

_After supper, when the Belgian couple asked us where we were going next, we realized that we had a decision to make, now that we are officially out of German territory. While we are all agreed on France as a destination, some of us would like to head south-west, toward Paris, others north-west, toward the Channel ports. We have settled on sticking together for the moment, and are going as near to due west as possible. (We do not possess a compass, but both pilots claim an ability to navigate by the stars.) We will re-evaluate when we reach the other end of Belgium, or if we encounter British or French forces before then._

_It’s very hard to write—the notebook keeps sliding off my knee—so I will close now._

_6 December, 1918_

_Encountered a British patrol this evening. They were led by a Sgt., who immediately saluted, which stopped me in my tracks for a moment—we abandoned the practice in our ward back in ’16, and so I have not seen anyone salute for years, except for Germans. I’d nearly forgotten that our people do it._

_The men also reacted with great skepticism to my initial attempts to chum up and cadge a smoke—we have only Swiss ones, at the moment, so I wanted a dear old British fag. I had entirely forgotten that I’m dressed as an officer. Once I explained, they were quite friendly, although one ventured the opinion that I might want to find a soldier’s tunic before any General Staff saw me. (It’s very difficult to remember a world where anyone would care about a thing like that, but I suppose that world still exists, and I will be back in it soon enough!)_

_We exchanged a great deal of war news, and they assured us that conditions in England are not bad—some shortages and so forth, but nothing like what we saw in Germany, and the aerial bombing not nearly as devastating as the Germans wanted us to think it was. They are quite impressed with us for having stolen our ambulance and made our escape. The French MO and I looked over a couple of minor wounds that they had picked up, and changed their field dressings._

_12 December,1918_

_Writing this from a CCS in France—drinking a cup of stewed “Dixie” tea, to boot! Takes me right back to the beginning of the war, it does._

_As the above suggests, we have crossed into France—yesterday, in fact—and found our way to the British lines. Around the border, we picked up another group of self-repatriating prisoners of war, a group of British enlisted men. They were in much worse shape than any of us, having been in a forced-labor camp fairly near the Front, and reliant on their captors for food, as parcels weren’t reaching them._

_Joining up with them has slowed our progress. We can only go at a walking pace, since there isn’t room enough in the ambulance for all—or even for all who really shouldn’t be on their feet. The sick and injured have to take turns riding._

_The French MO and I conferred, and decided that the best thing was to get them into the hands of the RAMC as quickly as we could. By asking the locals, we found out the location of the nearest British “hospital” (though in correct RAMC parlance, it was nothing of the kind, being only a Dressing Station), and made our way there. At the dressing station, we were all given something to eat, and then the French, being pronounced fit to travel, took the ambulance and headed southwards._

_The rest of us were, in due course, evacuated back to this CCS. The other orderlies are all highly impressed with my capture—in the ambulance here, I was afforded the honor of riding up front with the driver._

_We are to go back on the next ambulance train, to one of the base hospitals, where they are sure someone will know what to do with us._

_15 December, 1918_

_In Calais. No one here knows what to do with us, apart from slaughtering the fatted calf. Several of the men who joined us at the French border have got dysentery from the change from starvation rations to being plied with delicacies wherever we go. Fortunately, I am not expected to help them, as there are plenty of two-handed orderlies here._

_It’s nearly unbearable being this close to home, and tied up in Army red tape. We got ourselves out of Germany on our own, but now we’re expected to sit and wait for someone to tell us what to do. It’s maddening. The officers, I suppose, are being told more of what’s happening, but they have been whisked away to an officers’ ward. It caught me flat-footed for a moment, after having traveled all this way with them. We became quite democratic, on the journey, and I had just as much of a say as anyone in what we did._

_It wouldn’t be so bad, waiting, if I could get some news of you, but of course there’s no way to do it. Everyone I ask says I’ll have to get in touch with the War Office, but they’ve got quite a lot to do at the moment and I can’t expect a quick answer. One of the NCOs here, taking pity on me, reviewed the recent casualty lists, and told me you’re not on them. There’s no particular reason you would be, of course, but those were the only records he had on hand to check. Missing you like hell—light a cigarette for me._

_17 December, 1918_

_You won’t believe where I am now: on a train heading for Ripon. I heard about a ship headed for the demob center there—coal miners, lightly wounded, and so on—and wangled my way aboard. Ripon, I was able to recall, is in Yorkshire and thus near you—or at least near to the last place I know you’ve been._

_I have decided that the quickest way by far to find out what’s become of you will be to go to Downton and ask. I must not expect to actually find you there—you’ve certainly joined up, or been called up—but they will know, if anyone does, where you are and how you’re faring._

_They will also be able to break it to me gently if…well, if._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At the end of the War, most prisoners of war, on both sides, were repatriated by the Red Cross. However, a small percentage of Allied prisoners did simply strike out for home on their own, as Peter does in this story. 
> 
> For narrative purposes, I had Peter’s story play out in an unusually dramatic fashion, and this representation should in no way be understood to reflect poorly on the work done by the International Red Cross Prisoner’s Bureau during the Great War and subsequent conflicts.


	32. Chapter 25: December, 1918-January, 1919

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A surprise visitor turns up at Downton. Thomas hatches a plan.

Rawlins was one of the first of the convalescent home staff to go. 

The Army was prepared to take its time demobilizing enlisted men, but injured officers were a different story, and as they moved into December, the convalescent home began taking on aspects of a ghost town in a Wild West picture show, as the lightly-injured or mostly-recovered leapt at the chance to recuperate at home, instead of in a ward in a stranger’s house. They still had a few new patients trickling in from the hospital—mostly ones who still required some form of skilled care—but when the wards had been half-empty for a week or two, Major Clarkson got orders to start jettisoning staff. 

There was a complicated formula for determining who was first in line to be sent home, involving things like fitness level, length of service, whether you had a job lined up or not, and if so, the priority category of said job, but from the sheepish way that Rawlins announced he’d gotten his demob orders, Thomas suspected he’d also asked to go. 

Thomas couldn’t really blame him, though, and so just said, “Well, somebody’s got to be first. Might as well be you.”

“Suppose so,” Rawlins agreed, looking relieved. 

There were about half a dozen of them all leaving at once. Their departure day happened to be a Monday, so the pub trip had to be Saturday evening, and on Sunday, Rawlins came to Thomas’s office for a private farewell drink—or several. 

Thomas had laid in a bottle of not-very-good brandy for the occasion, and Rawlins brought the photographs he’d taken in France with his vest-pocket camera. Between the two, they managed to get pretty thoroughly maudlin. 

“Remember,” Rawlins said, “when you told Plank if he undid his top button again, you were going to sew it to his neck?”

“Yes,” Thomas said. “I would have, too,” he lied, because he knew it would make Rawlins laugh, and he was right. 

“He was still scared to unbutton it after you left,” Rawlins told him. “He’d do it, but he’d sort of look around like you might be about to jump out from somewhere.” He imitated it. 

Thomas refilled their glasses. “Poor Plank,” he said, raising his. “To Plank’s top button.” 

Several drinks later, Rawlins said, “It was shit, you know. The whole thing. Just utter…shit.”

“Too right.” Thomas lit a cigarette. It took him two tries to get the flame to the end of the cigarette.

“But it was all right,” Rawlins went on. 

Thomas thought about that for a moment. “Yeah,” he decided. “An all right kind of utter shit.”

Once Rawlins stopped giggling, he said, “No, I mean, like—if it weren’t for the war, I wouldn’t know you.” 

“Suppose not,” Thomas agreed. 

“I mean, or Rouse, or Wiggins. You’re all a lot cleverer than me, but I’m not so thick I don’t realize….” He made a vague gesture that encompassed the vast gulf of class that had separated them before the war, and would again after tomorrow morning. “There’s no way we’d have met. Or if we did, it would be as….”

As a worker on the factory floor and the manager’s lazy, spoiled son, perhaps. Thomas would have hated him, if they’d met like that. “I know what you mean.” 

“It’s just not right that that’s what it took,” Rawlins went on. 

“I know.” 

Then Rawlins found a snapshot where the cat was sitting in someone’s helmet, so they laughed about that for a while. 

Rawlins ended up too drunk to make his way back to his billet that night, so Thomas stashed him on the stretcher-bed in the office, which required him, in the morning, to run down to the village as fast as his artificial leg would carry him, so that he’d have time to grab his kit and still make the train to the demob center. 

Just as well, really—Thomas wasn’t much in the mood for a lengthy goodbye. He wasn’t really in the mood for Anna bringing him cups of tea and squeezing his arm, either, but he got those anyway. 

After the first group left—and with who’d be next, and when, being all anybody could talk about—Thomas really couldn’t put off thinking about the future for much longer. A few days after Rawlins’s departure, he went down to the village for a chat with his commanding officer.

“Very wise, I’m sure,” Major Clarkson said, when he explained that he was considering his postwar employment prospects. “You can rely on me for a good reference.”

“Thank you, sir. I’ve found that this type of work suits me pretty well.”

Thomas had hoped that, with that hint, Major Clarkson might volunteer a suggestion. Hadn’t really expected it, but he had hoped. All Clarkson said was, “Hm.”

He was going to have to _ask_ , then. All right. “One thing I’m wondering is whether there’s any chance of staying on in the RAMC.” 

Major Clarkson’s hesitation told him all that he needed to know, but you couldn’t interrupt your commanding officer when he was trying to figure out how to let you down gently. “They’ll be reducing strength considerably, I’m afraid. I would be happy to recommend you, but I believe most of the available places will be for…higher fitness classifications.”

Damn. He’d expected that, really. And it wasn’t that he necessarily _wanted_ to stay in the Army. “I see, sir. Well. I just wondered if it was something I ought to consider.” 

“You have done very well,” Major Clarkson said kindly. “If I had a suitable position here, I would offer it to you, but I only have enough work for one assistant, and in civilian practice, it must be a nurse, for the sake of the female patients.”

“I understand, sir.” That took care of the second thing he was going to ask about—though he’d expected that answer, too. “What about larger hospitals? I’m not really sure what sort of jobs they have.”

Major Clarkson rubbed his chin. “The difficulty there is that most of the _skilled_ work is done by women nurses. Most of the places for men are as porters. Your war experience would nearly make you _over_ qualified—except that you’d need to be able to lift stretchers.” 

Now that one, he _wasn’t_ quite expecting. “There has to be something. Sir,” he added belatedly. 

“There may be, but I don’t know what,” the Major said, with a touch of irritation. “You’ve no secondary education at all, have you?”

“No, sir.”

“That’s a pity.” He shook his head. “I’m glad you’ve enjoyed your war work, and I’m sorry to say it, but it’s probably more realistic for you to go back into service.”

Thomas wanted to strangle him, or cry, but managed to say calmly, “I’m not sure that’s true, sir.”

“Surely they’ll take you back on at the big house. Lady Grantham’s quite pleased with everything you’ve done with the convalescent home.”

“No, sir. I mean, yes, sir. But it’s the same sort of thing as you said—they might hire me if they had anything suitable, but they don’t.” At least, that would be true if Carson didn’t hate him. “They’ll need footmen, but I can’t wait at table with my shoulder the way it is. Not properly. I might be able to manage as valet or butler, but they already have those. And if I apply for a place at another house, I have to start by telling them all the things I _can’t_ do, and with every Tom, Dick, and Harry out looking for work, it’s hard to see why they’d bother. I can’t go putting in two months’ work for free, like I did here, just to prove I can pull my weight, so—”

“All right, Sergeant,” Major Clarkson said—half-shouted, really, and it was only then that Thomas realized his own voice had been rising in pitch and volume as he went on enumerating the reasons that his situation was impossible. 

“Sorry, sir,” he muttered. 

“I understand it’s frustrating,” Clarkson said. “But you must know that there are a lot of men in the same situation.”

Yes, and a lot of them were living in the stables at Haxby Park. He took a deep breath. “Yes, sir.”

Major Clarkson went on, “There are re-training grants, for men whose injuries make them unfit for their pre-war occupations. If your prospects in service are really that dim, you may qualify.” 

That was a bit encouraging. “How does that work, sir?” Perhaps, he thought, he could just _report_ somewhere, and they’d tell him what he was going to be trained for. 

“I mostly know about the medical side of it,” he said. “I’d need to conduct an examination and certify that you’re unfit for your old occupation, and that you _are_ fit for the occupation in which you wish to be trained. They also take into account the prospects for suitable employment after training—essential occupations are given priority, as are cases where the man had a job lined up.”

So he’d have to figure out some sort of job he’d be able to do, and then convince somebody—a panel, probably—that he would be able to find a job doing it. It seemed like a dreadful lot of work, considering. 

Considering he still wasn’t particularly convinced he wanted to live. “Yes, sir.”

“I’ll see what else I can find out,” Major Clarkson said. “And I can write to a few colleagues at large hospitals. There may be something there that I haven’t thought of.”

“Thank you, sir,” he said, and tried to sound like he meant it. 

“We’ll still need you at the convalescent home for several weeks,” he added. “And we may continue getting military patients here for some time after that. It isn’t clear yet.”

“Yes, sir.”

The news really hadn’t been much worse than he’d expected, but Thomas was still feeling low as he trudged up to the house. It was time now, he supposed, to regret not having leapt on Lieutenant Courtenay’s offer, last summer. Perhaps then Courtenay would have gone to the trouble to keep writing to him. Their correspondence, always sparse and guarded, due to the need for some stranger to read Thomas’s letters and write Courtenay’s, had dwindled to nothing after Courtenay had left the blind center and gone home to his farm and his cows. After two letters in a row went unanswered, Thomas had gotten the message. Men like that—his _betters_ —always got tired of Thomas eventually.

He could try writing him again. They _had_ agreed to meet up at the end of the war and have a drink, if nothing else. But Courtenay would see through him—blind or not—and the idea of Courtenay _knowing_ that Thomas was desperate enough to chase after him and beg for the chance to be his live-in tart, when Courtenay had made clear enough that he wasn’t interested anymore, made Thomas feel a bit ill. And a bit like slitting his own wrists.

If he _didn’t_ write to Courtenay again, he could remember him as one of those people he’d gotten close to, when the war threw them together, and then lost track of—like Rawlins and Rouse and Jessop and the Wardmaster—rather than as one of the string of gentlemen who had decided Thomas wasn’t good enough. So he wouldn’t write. 

He fetched up on his usual crate in the kitchen courtyard, and lit a cigarette. 

He hadn’t gotten very far into it when Anna came out, clutching a shawl around her shoulders. “What do you want?” he asked. 

“I was wondering how it went with Major Clarkson,” she said. “But I don’t think I need to ask.”

What was that supposed to mean? “It’s about like I thought,” he said. “The RAMC doesn’t want me, and there’s nothing in hospital work for a man who can’t lift stretchers. Apparently all the skilled jobs are for _women_. But he doesn’t see what I’ve got to worry about, since surely they’ll take me back on here.”

“Oh,” said Anna. “But did you tell him that—”

“Of course I did, and he said that if I’m not _lying_ about not being able to wait at table, I _might_ be able to get a grant under the re-training scheme,” he went on, knowing as he did that he wasn’t being entirely fair—Major Clarkson hadn’t actually said that he thought Thomas was lying. 

“That sounds like it might be—”

“Then if that bit works out, all I’ve got to do is figure out something I can do, and convince them I’ll be able to get a job doing it. I’m sure that’ll be very easy, since it isn’t like everybody else in the country won’t be doing the same.”

Wrapping the shawl more tightly around herself, Anna sat down on another crate. “Are you finished?”

“Yes,” he said, intentionally misunderstanding. “I suppose I am. Absolutely finished.”

She sighed. “Thomas….”

“Unless I get a hold of some untraceable Asiatic poison and slip it into Carson’s sherry,” he added. They might not make him butler, but with Carson out of the way, he could wangle _something_ at Downton. 

“I don’t think you should do that,” Anna said, with apparent seriousness. “Sometimes he shares it with Mrs. Hughes.”

“You don’t fancy being housekeeper?”

“Not particularly,” she said. “Anyway, I thought he wasn’t worth going to prison for.”

“That’s why it’s got to be untraceable,” Thomas explained. “It’ll look like his heart trouble came back.” Belatedly, it occurred to Thomas that, if Carson _did_ happen to have a heart attack, he’d just incriminated himself, and he said hastily, “I’m not actually going to murder Carson.” 

“I didn’t think you were,” Anna said. 

“If I find any untraceable Asiatic poison, I’ll probably just take it myself,” he added. 

She gave him a _look_ , and squeezed his arm. “Why don’t you come in and have a cup of tea,” she suggested. 

“Sure,” he said, taking the last drag of his cigarette. “That’ll help.”

#

“It’s all sorted with his lordship,” Mr. Bates said, taking the seat next to Anna at the servants’ hall table. “I’ll take an early train down tomorrow.”

Anna was of the opinion that his going to London and attempting to reason with Vera would only encourage her to pursue whatever hold she imagined she still had over him, but they’d already quarreled about it once, and she didn’t much want to do it again. “When do you think you’ll be back?” she asked instead.

“The day after, with any luck.”

As he was answering, Thomas came in and sat on her other side—still looking about as despondent as he had that afternoon. “Good,” she said. “Perhaps while you’re away, Thomas could dress Mr. Matthew.” 

“He’s de-mobbed,” Thomas pointed out waspishly. “It’s not my job.” 

Honestly, how could he be so sharp when it came to spotting an underhanded scheme, but completely oblivious to any efforts to help him? 

“Mr. Carson will do it,” Mr. Bates said. “Don’t trouble yourself.”

Eyeing Thomas, she hinted, “Mr. Carson hasn’t got medical training.” Neither did Mr. Bates, but—despite Mr. Mathew’s no longer being in the Army—the convalescent home men helped with the more technical aspects of his care. That would only last as long as the convalescent home did, and then the family would need to look for another solution. 

At last, Thomas caught on. “You know I can’t stay here,” he said. “Anyway, Mr. Molesley’s supposed to be his valet.”

Privately, Anna was less certain than Thomas was that Carson would stick to his guns about not allowing Thomas back—particularly if Lady Mary could be brought on-side. But she didn’t think much of her chances of convincing Thomas of that, at least not in the mood he was in. “No, but I’m sure you realize that valeting a crippled gentleman is just the sort of job you ought to look for.” He’d realize it once he was done being dramatic, anyway. “You’ll be able to find out if you can manage one who’s paralyzed, with your shoulder and everything.”

Thomas scoffed wordlessly, which she knew meant he couldn’t think of any genuine objections. “Fine,” he said sulkily. “If I have to.”

After dinner, the young ladies didn’t ring right away, so Anna sought out Mrs. Hughes in her sitting room. After a few preliminary remarks about the household routines for the next day, she brought up Thomas. 

“He was in a fine temper this evening,” Mrs. Hughes noted.

“He…didn’t get the news he was hoping for, from Dr. Clarkson,” she explained. “About a job after the convalescent home’s finished.”

“That’s a shame,” she said. 

Anna hesitated. “I’ve been wondering, whether Mr. Carson really meant it, about not having him back after the war.” 

Mrs. Hughes opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again. “Hm.”

“Because with Mr. Matthew….” She trailed off delicately. “It seems like a lot for Mr. Molesley, on top of being butler at Crawley House, I mean, and with him not having any medical training.”

“And I don’t suppose Mr. Matthew will want to be taken care of by his mother, especially once he’s married,” Mrs. Hughes said. “It would be a very neat solution,” she allowed. “But as for Mr. Carson….” She sighed. 

“He…doesn’t really want to leave,” she said. “Or I don’t think he does.” Because she couldn’t say _He’s talking about killing himself_. “Everyone he knows is here, and we’re used to his…ways.” Where else could he go, where they’d understand that he was at his most unpleasant when he was desperately unhappy? 

“Well,” Mrs. Hughes said. “Mr. Carson hasn’t spoken about it in a while. I suppose it’s possible that he’s…softened, on the subject.”

Put that way, it didn’t seem terribly likely. 

“I’ll see what I can find out,” Mrs. Hughes promised. And then Lady Mary’s bell rang, and Anna had to go upstairs.

#

“And now Mr. Bates is running off to London again,” Mr. Carson said, pouring generous measures of sherry into two glasses. “If we _must_ have a divorce in the household, I do wish he’d get on with it.”

“I expect he feels the same way,” Mrs. Hughes pointed out tartly. She’d heard enough from Anna to know that It was _Mrs._ Bates who was delaying the process. 

Mr. Carson waved off that point. “On top of everything else, he suggested that _Sergeant Barrow_ look after Mr. Matthew while he’s away.”

She hadn’t planned on acting on Anna’s request immediately, but if Mr. Carson was going to bring it up…. “And why shouldn’t he?”

“Sergeant Barrow does not work for this house,” Mr. Carson said scathingly. “I think we can all figure out who’s behind that idea. If he thinks he can get his foot in the door, he’s in for a disappointment.”

Mrs. Hughes had a better idea than Carson did of who had suggested it, but decided it would do no good to tell him that Anna was the one behind it. “Don’t you think it would be a good idea for Mr. Matthew to have a valet with medical training?” she said instead. 

“Certainly,” said Mr. Carson. “As long as it _isn’t_ Thomas.” 

Well, she supposed, that answered _that_ question. 

#

Thomas wasn’t an idiot; he knew that Anna must be thinking he could wangle his way into being Mr. Matthew’s valet, once he was demobbed. The trouble was that, even if Mr. Carson could be forced to take him back—which was, though unlikely, perhaps not impossible—there were a million ways he could make Thomas’s life hell for him, in any position even nominally under his authority. 

And he’d do it, too. There was no doubt about that. 

But he’d said that he’d dress Mr. Matthew today, so after breakfast and giving the morning’s duty assignments to the men, Thomas dragged himself over to the ground-floor bedroom they’d set up in what had been Lord Grantham’s den. He was just about to knock when Mr. Carson came through the green baize door, carrying a calling-tray with a cup of tea and shaving water. “What are you doing here?” he demanded. 

Nothing, apparently. “Mr. Bates asked me to dress Mr. Matthew while he’s away.” 

“Mr. Bates is not butler in this house,” Carson pointed out. 

“I didn’t think he was,” Thomas said. 

“If you wanted to valet Mr. Matthew, you should have thought of that before you so comprehensively burned your bridges here, Sergeant.”

Stung, Thomas retorted, “I don’t. Have at it. I’ve plenty else to do.”

He turned to go, but Carson managed to get one more dig in before he was out of earshot. “Then I suggest you do it.”

Unfortunately, he really _didn’t_ have that much else to do. The number of patients had dwindled still further, but they hadn’t lost any more staff yet, so there was barely enough work to keep the men out of mischief, let alone serve as a satisfactory distraction from the many things that Thomas didn’t want to think about. 

Thomas began to understand the purpose of the incessant drilling and uniform inspections in the peacetime army—at least it gave you something to _do_. But Thomas knew that if he tried to instill a higher level of military discipline in men who knew perfectly well that they were just marking time until they could be demobbed, he’d have a riot on his hands. So instead they gathered in the orderlies’ room to smoke and drink cups of tea. Thomas wasn’t sure whether it was more irritating when they talked about nothing in particular, or when they groused about their own troubles sorting out their postwar lives. 

He managed to fill part of the day writing out references—which none of them had thought to ask for yet—but by mid-afternoon, he found himself drifting downstairs for, if not peace and quiet, at least a change of scenery. 

He quickly regretted it. The new maid Jane, who was a war widow, had apparently just been to the demob center in Ripon to see about survivor’s benefits, and was attempting to interest Daisy in an explanation of the process. 

“I’m not really a widow, am I?” she asked. 

The question was clearly rhetorical, but naturally Anna and some of the others took it as an invitation to convince her she really was. 

“She’s right, you know,” Thomas pointed out, after they’d gone round on the subject for a while. “Widows’ pensions are meant for households that’ve lost their breadwinner. They never set up home together, and Daisy’s been working all along.” 

“Thank you,” Daisy said tartly. “See?” she told Anna and Jane. “That’s just what I mean.”

He added, “But if they’re dumb enough to give it to you, you’d have to be mad not to take it.” 

Daisy threw up her hands and left the room. 

Anna gave him a meaningful look and sighed. 

“What?”

“You can’t bear to agree with anyone, can you?” she asked. 

“Not when no one’s right,” he answered. 

Daisy came back a few moments later, bearing a determined expression and a plate of tea-cakes. “What will _you_ do, now the war’s over?” she asked him. 

He glared at her. “I haven’t decided yet.”

“Will they give you a pension? For your shoulder?”

“No.” He wasn’t nearly crippled enough for that—just crippled enough the Army didn’t want him, and enough for it to be a black mark against him in any job he applied for. 

“They ought to,” she said. “You deserve one more than I do.”

“Daisy,” Anna said. 

“Yes, I do,” Thomas agreed, standing up. “But that’s got nothing to do with it.” He left. 

#

“I don’t suppose I’ll be wearing that much longer,” Lady Sybil noted, giving her nursing uniform a lingering look as she handed it over to Anna. 

“I expect not, my lady,” Anna agreed. This might be the best chance she’d get to raise the subject that had been occupying her mind since that afternoon. “Speaking of that, has Thomas—Sergeant Barrow—mentioned anything about his plans for when the convalescent home is finished?” She didn’t particularly think he had, but asking was the best way to find out if Lady Sybil was aware of the problem—and to get her thinking about it, if she wasn’t. 

“No,” Lady Sybil said. “Why? What does he have in mind?”

Anna shook her head. “Nothing that I’ve heard, my lady. I’ve gotten the impression he’s avoiding thinking about it.” And avoiding it wouldn’t do him any good. 

“Oh,” said Lady Sybil, frowning slightly as she raised her arms for Anna to put a dinner dress over her head. 

Anna went on, “With his shoulder being the way it is, he won’t be able to go back to being a footman.”

“I don’t think he wants to,” Lady Sybil said. She thought for a moment, and said brightly, “Surely Major Clarkson will have some ideas. Shall I speak to him?”

“Thomas already has, my lady,” Anna informed her. “I gather he didn’t have much in the way of practical ideas, but perhaps it’s worth trying again.” It wouldn’t precisely be a shock if the picture that Thomas had relayed to her was somewhat bleaker than what Doctor Clarkson had actually said. 

“I’ll try,” Lady Sybil agreed, turning for Anna to do up the back of her dress.

#

“…so he said that he really ought to think about going back into service, and it isn’t _fair_ ,” Sybil finished. She’d just come from an infuriating conversation with Dr. Clarkson, in which he’d explained that Sergeant Barrow’s injury made it unlikely he’d be hired for unskilled hospital work, and that he didn’t have enough education for the more technical jobs, and had stopped off at the garage to share her frustration with Tom, whom she was sure would understand. 

“It isn’t,” Tom agreed. “But he’s probably right. It’s difficult, making the leap into a new kind of work.”

Sybil thought about Gwen—but the difficulty there had been in finding an employer who understood that her experience was relevant. Sergeant Barrow _did_ have relevant experience, but Dr. Clarkson seemed to be saying that didn’t matter. “He said that to be an x-ray operator or to work in a laboratory or something like that, a man would need to have been to secondary school, but I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

Tom sighed, putting down the piece of machinery he was working on. “It isn’t about being able to do the work. It’s about being the ‘right sort of person.’ Now, the Socialists would like to do away with all that—let every man rise as far as his talents will take him—but short of moving to Russia, that’s not going to do Barrow any good.”

Sybil felt a bit guilty, as she always did when Tom brought up class and Socialism and things like that. She knew perfectly well that the advantages she had in life weren’t fair, either, but after all, she had never _asked_ for them. “Then what would do some good? What can I do?”

He shot her a strange sort of look, one that she was beginning to suspect might be _pity_. “Talk to your father,” he said flatly. She opened her mouth to protest, and he held up a hand as if to block her words. “I know. But if his shoulder’s as bad as he says, he isn’t going to have an easy time finding another job as a servant, either. And that’s without…well, there’s other things that could stand in his way. Never mind what.”

“I know about _that_ ,” Sybil said. “But—”

Tom interrupted. “He told you about _that_?”

“No,” she said. “One of my sisters did. Anyway, what does that have to do with it?”

Picking the piece of machinery back up, Tom said, “It just does.”

Knowing that this topic was one upon which no man was likely to elaborate, no matter what questions she asked, she let it pass. “He doesn’t even _want_ to be a servant anymore.”

Tom studied the piece of machinery, with what Sybil suspected was more focus than it really required. “What he wants doesn’t really enter into it. Last I heard, his plan for after the war was to go and live with them over at Haxby Hall.”

Sybil heard herself gasp. Tom had explained to her, that the setup they had there wasn’t as bad as it seemed, but her mind recoiled from the thought of her friend joining the ranks of those ragged men. 

“If they haven’t been kicked out by then,” Tom added. “Anything better than that, he’s going to have to be grateful for, whether he likes it or not.” He picked up a tool—a spanner, she thought—and repeated, “You want to help, talk to your father.”

#

Thomas sat on a crate outside the back door, smoking a pensive cigarette. “What will you do now?” Daisy had asked him, and the truth was, he didn’t know. It was all very well for Anna to suggest that he ought to valet a crippled gentleman—he’d had the same thought himself, a time or two—but if that was what he was going to do, he ought to have been sucking up to the officers in the convalescent home all along. It might not be too late to start now, but he’d have to pretend to be keen. 

He wasn’t sure how he could summon the energy to pretend that he wanted to do _anything_ , much less that. 

He couldn’t, no matter how he tried, share in everyone else’s happiness at having the end in sight. Of things going back to normal. Nothing would ever be normal for him again. Everyone else was seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, but he was looking down the barrel of a gun loaded with a vast and empty future. 

It wasn’t just Peter, although that was a big part of it. It seemed like everyone he knew was dead. Eddie, Joey, Reg, silly old Syl, Theo, and all the rest of them. It was the cruelest joke of his life that he was the one left standing. 

“Thomas? Oh dear God. _Thomas_.”

And now, of all things, he was hallucinating. Had he been hanging on, all this time, only to go finally and permanently mad now that peace had returned?

It wasn’t even a very _good_ hallucination. Why, in God’s name, would he hallucinate Peter in an officer’s jacket, with one arm missing? He ought to have been in his livery from their footman days, or the suit he’d worn to Kew Gardens, or his pristine RAMC uniform as he’d worn at the Bird and Bell—any of the ways Thomas had seen him and known him and loved him. Or at very least in his RAMC uniform, dark with salt-water, and seaweed tangled in his hair. As he had died. 

“Peter?” he said, his voice very small. 

If he was mad, he decided, he would stay that way. It would be so much easier.

Peter dropped his haversack—carried over his good shoulder—and closed the distance between them, throwing his arm around Thomas. “God,” he said. “I didn’t think you’d actually _be_ here.”

He was warm, and solid, and not the least bit damp. “How,” Thomas said, shaking his head.

“It’s—damn, it’s a long story, and I’m not demobbed yet, have to get back to Ripon before they miss me. I just had to get away and find out how you were.”

They’d just been talking about the demob center in Ripon, which, if he was hallucinating, would explain that detail, but not any of the rest of it. “Only you’re meant to be _dead_ , Peter. Don’t think I’m not happy to see you, I am, but _where the bloody hell have you been_?” 

“Here,” Peter said, guiding him back to the crate he’d been sitting on. “What do you mean, _dead_?”

“You went down on the _Albion_ ,” Thomas said. “I had a telegram.”

“You never heard from the Red Cross?”

Why would he? Thomas shook his head.

“Bloody buggering fuck,” Peter swore. Thomas wasn’t sure he’d ever heard him swear in real life. Not that badly, to be sure. “Shove over.”

Thomas shoved over, and Peter crammed onto the seat with him, his shoulder pressed against Thomas’s. The one without an arm to it. And why would Thomas hallucinate a detail like that? 

“They were supposed to tell you. _Fuck_. I swear to God, if I had known, I’d have come up with something. Got sent to a regular camp. Oh, Christ. That must have been awful for you.”

Thomas nodded. It was. “What—hang on.” He took out two cigarettes, lit both, and gave one to Peter. 

It did not, as Thomas had half-feared, fall through his insubstantial hand and onto the ground, but Peter, to his horror, started crying. 

“What—I’m sorry,” he said, quickly. “Whatever I did.”

“No,” Peter said, shaking his head. “I just—every time I write to you—and I have been writing to you, even though I couldn’t send them—I ask you to light a cigarette for me, and now—”

“Fuck,” Thomas said, his own eyes prickling. “No, I get it.” He moved to take Peter’s hand—fuck anyone who was watching—but then realized it wouldn’t leave him with one to smoke with. Luckily, he could just about get his own bad arm up to his mouth, so he put his good arm around Peter’s shoulders instead. “But where _were_ you?” If this was real—somehow—Peter must have been _somewhere_. 

“Captured,” Peter said, simply. “Just captured, and not too badly off, except they put us to work in a military hospital, and we couldn’t send letters in case we were spies. _Bloody_ hell,” he repeated, fervently. “And you—you’re here. Did you get demobbed already, or….”

Thomas shook his head. “We’re a convalescent home. I work here. But why—how did they let me think you were dead?”

“I don’t know, love. The Red Cross is supposed to tell you. Christ, I’d have smuggled a letter out somehow, or got myself sent to a regular camp or something, but _they were supposed to tell you_.”

“Christ,” Thomas echoed. 

“When we finish these,” Peter added, lifting his cigarette, “I’d better go back. It would be just our luck if I got court-martialed for going AWOL after the entire country lost track of me for over three years.”

“Just to Ripon?” Thomas asked, trying to think how he could go with him. He couldn’t stand the thought of being separated from Peter again, when he’d only just found out he was alive.

He couldn’t quite believe that, if Peter left his sight, the bubble wouldn’t burst, and leave him dead again.

Peter nodded. “If they need me to go anywhere else, I’ll cable you.”

“Ring,” Thomas said. A telegram took time to arrive, even if not much of it. “We’re on the telephone.” Carson would answer it, and want to know why Thomas was getting personal telephone calls on the house’s line, but he didn’t care.

“All right,” Peter said. “I’ll ring. I’m sure they won’t want to keep me—not with my arm the way it is. I’ll probably be back tomorrow.”

Thomas wanted to ask what had happened to his arm, but he also didn’t want to spend their last moment talking about it. “Tomorrow,” he repeated. 

“If not, I’ll telephone what’s happening,” he promised. He got up from the crate, and Thomas’s arm and heart ached at the separation. He went to his haversack, managing the buckles deftly one-handed, and took out a small book, like a pocket diary. “In the meantime, you can read my letters.” He made a sound that was half a laugh and half a sob. “Finally.” 

#

“Thomas?” Anna said. He was sitting on his smoking-crate, by the kitchen door, reading something and—she noticed with some surprise—crying. 

He’d been talking to someone moments ago, she knew that—one of the kitchen maids had made a complaint about hearing “barracks language” when she opened the door to take the scraps out. 

“Thomas, what’s wrong?” 

He looked up. “Nothing,” he said, smiling through his tears. “Absolutely nothing. At least—tell me you can read that.” 

He shoved a small notebook into her hands. She opened to the first page, and read,

_Dear Thomas,_

_I don’t know when I will have a chance to send this letter—or if I will manage to hang on to it until then—but it’s comforting to write to you, just the same. I know how worried you must be—but really, I’m not so badly off, as you will see._

Someone was alive, then, and well—someone he’d thought wasn’t. “Who,” she began, and then saw the next line:

_I imagine you’ve heard about the Albion._

She looked up at the top of the page, at the date. Then she turned the pages, looking for a signature, and finally found:

_Your Peter_

“But how—” Someone must have found it, she thought. One of Mr. Fitzroy’s comrades, and brought it to him, somehow. Peter’s last letter. 

Except she went on thumbing through the pages, and there were more of them, nearly the whole book full, with dates going right up to today. “What _is_ this?” she asked. 

“He was just here,” Thomas said. “He had to get back to Ripon before he was AWOL, but he was just here.”

If it weren’t for the book, she’d have thought he’d gone completely round the twist. For a second, she even wondered if he might have written it himself, and been sitting back here _pretending_ to talk to Peter when the kitchen maid heard him. 

“You do—” he said, and cut himself off. “I mean, I’m not actually hallucinating, am I? Only I thought at first I was. That’s from Peter.” It was almost a question. 

“It is,” she said, giving it back to him. “And he was _here_? In person?” It couldn’t be a hoax—or something like the reappearance of Patrick Crawley—if Thomas had seen him, and recognized him.

“Yeah,” Thomas said, sniffing and taking out a cigarette. He must have been reminded about the mysterious Major Gordon as well, because he said, “’e’s missing an arm—his left—but otherwise looks just like himself. I can’t get my head ’round it.”

He went on to explain, in jumbled fashion, that Peter had been captured. There was something about a U-Boat, and a German hospital, and the bastards at the Red Cross. 

“’e’s just gone to Ripon to get demobbed. Coming back as soon as they let him.”

“That’s wonderful,” she said, and didn’t ask what Mr. Fitzroy was going to do then. He’d stay here for a bit; they’d _have_ to let him. She’d speak to Mrs. Hughes about it. 

But the next thing Thomas said was, “Don’t tell anyone. Not yet. When he gets back, it’ll be real then.”

“All right,” she said. “If that’s what you want.”

“I do. And—I really can’t stand a row just now. I’ll be able to stand anything once he’s back, but not just now.”

#

After disentangling himself from Anna, Thomas barricaded himself in his office—as the place he could obtain something most nearly resembling privacy—to catch himself up on everything that had happened to Peter since the sinking of the _Albion_. He was relieved to read that Peter hadn’t been too badly treated in captivity—though, knowing Peter, it could have been a bit worse than he let on. And the loss of his arm had been the result of the kind of accident that easily could have happened in one of their own hospitals—as Thomas had plenty of reason to know. He thought of the patient that Nurse Crawley had been so upset about, whose arm had been taken by degrees, as Peter’s had, and who had _not_ survived the experience. 

The story of how he’d gotten back to England, at last, and to Ripon, sounded like the usual Army balls-up. That, more than anything, made the whole thing seem like it could be real—although, once Thomas finished reading the handwritten book, he immediately went back to the beginning and read it again. Even though Anna had seen it, had said that she’d seen it, he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that if he took his attention off of it for a moment, it—the book, and Peter, and the whole lovely dream of it—would evaporate. 

He was still half in a daze when he went down to dinner—or more than half, perhaps, since he only vaguely noticed that Carson was speaking scathingly at someone, and didn’t even consider that it might be him, until Carson concluded by saying, “Isn’t that right, Sergeant Barrow?”

“What?” he said stupidly. 

Carson just scoffed, and didn’t elaborate. Thomas thought about asking Anna to fill him in, but decided he didn’t care. Peter was alive. _Nothing_ else mattered. Not even Carson being a bastard.

A short while later, the telephone rang. Thomas’s heart pounded as Carson went to answer it. It had to be Peter, didn’t it? They were keeping him at the demob center, or sending him to—Thomas didn’t even know. Maybe they’d gotten it into their heads somehow that he’d deserted—the whole story was very improbable, wasn’t it?—and they were going to…what would they do? They shot deserters. Not very often, and they wouldn’t do it right away, but there would be a court-martial, and Peter imprisoned until then, and—

Carson didn’t come back, and didn’t come back, and didn’t come back. Everyone went on talking about inconsequential things, and Thomas stared at the door, every nerve jangling. When a figure appeared at the door, he was on his feet like a shot, and there was a moment of confusion as everyone else stood up to, and then Peter was saying, “I’m not _actually_ an officer,” and then Thomas was the whole way around the table, hugging him and crying, with no idea at all how he’d ended up there.

“All right, dearest?” Peter was saying into his ear. 

He nodded, and—with great reluctance—let go of Peter. “What happened?” he asked, leading him around the table to where they could sit down. “Are you out?”

“Not quite,” Peter answered. “But I got them to give me a home-leave pass, while they figure out how to demob a dead man. Once they did, I came straight here. Didn’t even stop for supper.”

Anna, bless her, grabbed a plate and started filling it. 

“Sergeant,” Mrs. Hughes said. Thomas wondered if she was going to object to their feeding Peter, but she continued, “Are you going to introduce your friend?”

He glanced at Anna. Apparently, she’d actually listened to him when he said he didn’t want her telling everyone. “Of course,” he said, his voice sounding strange in his own ears. “Mrs. Hughes, this is Corporal Fitzroy. He’s alive, after all.” Somehow, saying it aloud, with Peter standing right next to him, made it real. Thomas felt weak in the knees.

Around the table, there were gasps and exclamations of surprise—and of puzzlement, from those who hadn’t been there at the beginning of the war, and had no idea of the significance of this.

“That’s wonderful,” Mrs. Hughes said, once she had recovered herself. “But how?”

Peter launched into an abbreviated version of the tale his letters had told. It sounded well-worn; doubtless, he’d had to tell it countless times over the course of his journey back to England. He was just saying, “They treated us well enough, all things considered,” when Carson came in, and everyone stood up. 

His beady eyes fixed on Peter, and Mrs. Hughes said quickly, “Mr. Carson, you won’t believe who’s turned up. It seems that Thomas’s…that Mr. Fitzroy has been a prisoner in Germany all this time.”

Carson harrumphed. “Yes,” he said, still staring. “His lordship has had a telephone call from the War Office. He’s waiting to speak to Sergeant Barrow in the dining room—though apparently he already knows what he’s going to say.”

“You’d best go,” Peter pointed out. 

“Yes,” Thomas said distantly, but didn’t move. He couldn’t _leave Peter_ , not when he’d barely been back two minutes. Much less sort out what to say to Lord Grantham. There was a great deal to sort out, concerning where Peter would stay, and what he’d do, and what they’d _both_ do once Thomas was demobbed, but he hadn’t even begun to think about it all, let alone sorted out a strategy. He—

“Come on,” Peter said, taking his arm. They went up the stairs together, Peter explaining, as they went, “They telephoned the War Office, from Ripon. They really had no idea what to do with me, and it seems their top chap bunked off early for his Christmas holidays. Of course, by the time they thought of asking the War Office what they ought to do, all of _their_ top chaps had left for the day….”

When they reached the dining room, Thomas braced up automatically—Colonel Grantham hadn’t be demobbed yet, either—and Peter looked around curiously. 

“Sergeant,” Colonel Grantham said, looking between the two of them. “I’ve just had the most astonishing news from the War Office—but perhaps you’ve already heard it?”

“Yes, sir,” Thomas said, feeling faint. “This is Corporal Fitzroy.” 

“Sir,” Peter said. 

His lordship went on to say some anodyne things about how pleased he was by the news and how sorry they’d all been when they got the original, erroneous, news, concluding, “I had made some enquiries, on Thomas’s—Sergeant Barrow’s—behalf, when the _Albion_ sank. I suppose that’s why they telephoned me now—some burst of delayed efficiency, after having lost track of you for more than three years.”

“Yes, sir,” Peter agreed. “I hope you’ll forgive me pushing in to your servants’ hall—once I realized that my brother must have thought me dead too, if that was what the Army believed, all I could think of was finding him as quickly as I could.”

“Naturally,” Colonel Grantham agreed. 

Even though Lord Grantham knew otherwise, Thomas couldn’t help but feel better that Peter had thought to get the “brother” story out. Yes. He wasn’t introducing his _boyfriend_ to _Lord Grantham_ ; he was presenting his brother to the officer in charge of his billet. Much better. In that light, he said, “If it’s all right, sir, we’ll see about finding a billet for him in the village tomorrow.” 

He knew better than to think Peter could possibly _stay_ here, but Colonel Grantham would be unlikely to insist that a returning prisoner-of-war be tossed out in the middle of the night—at least, if he didn’t have more than a moment to think about it—and Carson probably wouldn’t cause a scene over a single night. 

“Yes, that would probably be best,” Colonel Grantham said. “I’ll leave you chaps to your reunion.” 

As they trooped back downstairs, Peter said, “I didn’t even notice you were a Sergeant.”

Glancing at Peter’s single set of stripes, Thomas said, “They needed somebody for the convalescent home.”

Peter stopped and turned around to look at him. “You mean—to run it?”

His tone wasn’t laden with quite as much unflattering surprise as anyone else’s would be. “Experienced NCOs were pretty thin on the ground, by then,” he explained. “And I did all right in France.”

“You were—of course you were,” Peter said, continuing down the steps. “Were you in the RAMC the whole time?”

“47th Ambulance,” Thomas confirmed, realizing as he did how much Peter didn’t know. About Theo, for instance. But that could wait. “Our Wardmaster took a liking to me.”

“Good,” Peter said. 

That took them the rest of the way downstairs. In the servants’ hall, Carson had apparently been filled in on what had happened in his brief absence; Mrs. Hughes was saying, “—course he’d come straight here and see Thomas, after everything they’ve been through.”

“I’m so glad you understand, Mrs. Hughes,” Peter said. “Mr. Carson,” he added, with a nod. 

Carson returned the nod, with a grudging, “Corporal.”

The others had nearly finished their dinners by now, which allowed them to mercilessly pepper Peter and Thomas with questions, as they attempted to eat theirs. 

“But why didn’t they notify Thomas you’d been taken prisoner?” Mrs. Patmore wanted to know, when she came in with the pudding. 

“I’m not sure,” Peter said. “The Red Cross is supposed to do it, but somehow they never turned over my name. One of the officers at the demob center said something about how medical personnel were supposed to be handled differently from other prisoners, as noncombatants.” He shrugged. “That may have caused some confusion, or perhaps the Germans fudged things—I gather people were fairly upset about their sinking a hospital ship. Someone might have decided that admitting they’d taken prisoners off it would only compound the error.”

“Quite the opposite, I should think,” Mrs. Hughes said. “It was plain human decency for the U-boat to go back and look for survivors.”

True, but if the German War Office was anything like the British one, they probably hadn’t wanted it getting out that their own Captain regretted what he had done. 

“They were jolly decent to us,” Peter said, in a tone of agreement. “Now it’s all over, I hope they’re all right.”

An awkward silence greeted this pronouncement. Carson filled it by asking, “And now that it _is_ all over, what are your plans, Corporal?”

Thomas knew perfectly well that what he wanted was to find out how hard he had to put his foot down over the question of Peter’s rapid departure, but if Peter realized that, he gave no sign. “I haven’t really worked that out yet,” he said. “I’ve only been thinking about getting back to England, and finding Thomas. At the moment, all I have on my calendar is reporting back to the demob center after Christmas—they hope to have figured out by then how to process me out.” 

Carson started to rumble, and Mrs. Hughes said quickly, “Of course, you won’t have made plans yet, when you’ve only just got back.”

“I’m sure your family will be glad to see you,” Jane chipped in. “And at Christmas, too. It’s like a miracle.” 

Her tone was a little wistful, and Thomas was reminded of her dead husband, who would not be coming back. 

“It’s just me and Thomas, I’m afraid,” Peter said. 

“We’ll find him a billet in the village,” Thomas said, for Carson’s benefit. Since he was on leave, he wasn’t exactly _entitled_ to a billet, but perhaps Sister Crawley, in her person as billeting officer, wouldn’t think of that. “It’s too late to get on that tonight, of course, so I thought he could have my room—”

He probably should have arranged that sentence differently, because before he could finish it, Carson _exploded_. “He most certainly will not!”

Peter blinked, and Jane looked at Carson in obvious confusion. Thomas continued, “And I’ll sleep in my office. Of course, if you insist, I’ll put Corporal Fitzroy on the stretcher-bed in my office instead, but since he’s just come back from being a prisoner-of-war, I thought we might make a _bit_ of an effort.”

As Carson continued to huff and puff, Mrs. Hughes said, “I’m sure that will be satisfactory.” 

Carson eyed her, and then Jane and the hall-boys, and said, “Sergeant, I will see you in my pantry when you’ve finished.”

“Yes, Mr. Carson,” Thomas said obediently. Suddenly, he wasn’t very hungry anymore.

When they had finished eating, Peter offered to go in and face Carson with him, but Thomas demurred—no reason for Peter to be subjected to whatever awful things Carson was planning to say. “No, you wait here. Once I’ve found out what he wants, I’ll show you my office and we can catch up some more.”

Going to Carson’s pantry, Thomas passed Mrs. Hughes on her way out. She gave him an encouraging smile. 

When he went in, Carson invited him to sit—perhaps because he knew Thomas would have done so anyway. He cleared his throat several times, folding and re-folding his hands on his desk. Thomas was considering whether to suggest that he leave and come back when Carson was ready for him, when he finally spoke, in a tone of exquisite reasonableness. “In light of everything that he has been through, I will not object to giving your—to giving Corporal Fitzroy shelter for one night. Perhaps even two, if making other arrangements proves difficult.”

Caught off-balance, Thomas said, “Thank you,” and waited for the other shoe to drop.

He didn’t have to wait long. “But let there be no misunderstanding. Others may choose to find your…proclivities…amusing, but I do not. I will tolerate no _illegal activities_ under this roof. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Mr. Carson.”

“If I am…disobeyed, in this regard, I will be forced to inform the appropriate authorities.” 

Of course he would. And of course he would pretend that Thomas had _forced_ him to do it. “Fine.”

“Very well. Tread carefully, Sergeant Barrow.” 

“I always do,” Thomas said, standing up.

“If only that were true, Sergeant. If only that were true.”

Manfully, Thomas resisted the impulse to hurl a parting shot over his shoulder as he left. 

He found Peter in the servants’ hall where he’d left him, talking to Anna. “—all right except when he isn’t,” she was saying. “You know how he is.”

“I do,” Peter said, smiling. He stood up, extending his hand toward Thomas. “Shall we?”

Thomas nodded but, mindful of Carson, didn’t take his arm. In the relative privacy of the stairs, he explained, “So he’s not going to toss you out into the night, but if he thinks we’re getting up to anything, he’ll send for the police.”

“I see,” Peter said. “Good of him to warn us, I suppose.”

Thomas scoffed. 

Upstairs, before going to his office, he paused in the main ward to tell the night-duty man—they were down to one—that he’d be in his office for the night. “But don’t bother me unless it’s a real emergency. My brother,” here he indicated Peter, “has just got back from being a prisoner-of-war, so we’ve a lot to catch up on.” Not that it was any of Jewett’s business, but he might as well get the official story into the rumor mill, before anyone went asking the household staff who the one-armed Corporal was. 

“Sure, Sarge,” Jewett said, eyeing Peter. “Golly, you never said.”

“He was presumed dead until just recently,” Thomas said. “Goodnight.” As they went to the office, he said, “Don’t go thinking we’ve got privacy in here—it’s the orderlies’ room and linen room, as well as my office.”

“Short on rooms, are they?” Peter asked. 

“We had to fight to get even this much,” Thomas said. “Back in the thick of things, we were trying to fit in as many patients as possible. Now we’re half-empty, I suppose we could spread out more, but….” There wasn’t much point, really, when they’d be shutting down any time now. And any room they did clear of patient beds, the family would probably want to take back. 

They hadn’t quite finished the bottle of brandy on Rawlins’s last night, so Thomas poured them some drinks and they settled in the armchairs. “So,” Peter said. “You know what I’ve been doing the last few years. What about you?”

Among the many disadvantages of _not having had any idea Peter was alive_ was that Thomas hadn’t prepared an orderly summary of his activities, but once he found a place to begin, one topic led on easily to the next. They talked for hours, eventually migrating over to the stretcher-bed, where they could sit pressed shoulder-to-shoulder. 

If Carson had any objections to _that_ , Thomas decided, he could stuff them up his jumper.

At some point—it was after Peter had asked about their friends, and Thomas had had to tell him about Theo and everyone—Thomas drifted off to sleep, his head on Peter’s shoulder. He woke, some time later, to a series of vague noises and Peter saying, “I think we’d better get up, dearest.”

Thomas sat up, stiff all over and deliriously happy. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Didn’t mean to sleep all over you.”

Peter laughed, and shoved his shoulder against Thomas’s. “I think I’ve found an advantage of losing an arm,” he said. “No pins-and-needles, after someone’s slept on your shoulder.”

 _Oh, Peter_. He could find the good in anything—which Thomas supposed he had no business complaining about, since it had allowed Peter to find the good in _him_. 

Thomas got up to his bedroom just in time to plausibly pretend that he had been there for a good portion of the night—the timing was a little too tight for him to show Peter where it was without being seen, so they decided that Peter had slept in the office. Once he’d washed and shaved, he dug out the rucksack containing Peter’s effects—he’d shoved it, unopened, in a corner—and, after a moment’s thought, his spare tunic. Peter _did_ look devastatingly handsome in his officer’s uniform, but it was bound to cause some confusion.

When he got back down to his office, Peter wasn’t there. For a heart-stopping moment, Thomas wondered if he had dreamed the whole thing. But the full ashtray and the two empty glasses suggested otherwise, as did the rumpled state of the stretcher-bed—which he smoothed out automatically—so he decided he could go and look for Peter, discreetly, without being immediately thrown in the nuthouse. 

He found him easily enough, coming out of the lavatory off the main ward, freshly shaved. “There you are,” he said. “Do up my tie for me?”

Thomas nearly wept—whether from relief that it hadn’t been a dream, or the realization that Peter couldn’t do up his own tie anymore, not with only one hand, or from the sheer, simple homeliness of it, or the memory of all the times Peter had done up _his_ , he couldn’t have said. Fortunately, since he managed not to _actually_ cry, he wasn’t called upon to explain it. 

They went back into his office and he did up Peter’s tie. “I brought you my other tunic,” he said as he did it. “But you’ll have to keep this one on until we can fix the stripes and everything.” Peter had the empty sleeve of his officer’s coat sewn flat against the side, which Thomas thought looked a bit nattier than pinning it up, as most of the wounded officers did. 

“Can’t have me impersonating a Sergeant,” Peter agreed, grinning. “You know, _everywhere_ I went after we got back behind British lines, I had to explain about my uniform? You’d think if they were that worried about it, _someone_ would have thought to issue me a proper one, but no one did.”

“Until me,” Thomas said, wondering if, perhaps, Peter meant he shouldn’t have bothered about it. 

“Until you,” Peter agreed, smiling even more broadly. 

Thomas loved him so much he could barely stand it. 

They went downstairs to breakfast, where Thomas expected more of last night’s interrogation, but it turned out that much of the household’s attention was diverted by the return of Mr. Bates—much earlier than expected, and looking as though he’d been dragged through a hedge backwards. He was even sporting a shiner with a cut in the middle of it, like he’d been backhanded by somebody wearing a ring. 

He explained it by saying that he’d stumbled on the train and fallen against a railing, but something about the story sounded a little rehearsed to Thomas. Fisticuffs with the soon-to-be-former Mrs. Bates’s lover? But he couldn’t be bothered to care very much, not when Peter was here, and they had problems of their own to sort out. 

The first order of business was to find him a place to stay. Between them, they had a bit of money put by, but Thomas didn’t want to start spending it before they had to, so once the day-shift orderlies had reported in and been set to their tasks for the morning, they started for the village. 

“It’s a bit of luck that my corporal just left a few days ago,” Thomas explained as they walked. “We’ll try to make it sound as though there’s work for you to do, at the convalescent home. They won’t pay you, without your being posted here, but they just might cough up a billet.”

“Let’s hope so,” Peter agreed. “I suppose I ought to have thought more about the practicalities when I was at the demob center, but I wanted to get back to you.”

“As well you should,” Thomas said. Peter had explained, at some point last night, that the people at the demob center had been talking about sticking him in the infirmary until their commanding officer got back from Scotland or wherever he’d bunked off to, but Peter had convinced them to write out a leave-chit for him, instead. “We’ll put you up at the pub if we’ve got to, and hang the expense.”

Major Clarkson was about as politely skeptical as he’d been two years ago, when Thomas had shown up fresh from the Royal Orthopedic Hospital, wanting to work. “I’ve no objection if you want to make yourself useful, Corporal,” he said, trying to avoid looking at the space where Peter’s left arm should have been. “But as I’m sure Sergeant Barrow has told you, we’re reducing staff. It’s highly unlikely I’d be able to get you posted here, once your leave is finished.”

“I understand, sir,” Peter said. “I expect they’ll demob me as soon as they’ve sorted out how to do it, but I can’t get other work while I’m still in the Army, and I’d just as soon not be idle.”

“Very well, then,” Major Clarkson said. “As long as you understand there’s not likely to be any advantage in it for you, you can report to Sergeant Barrow.”

Given his lack of enthusiasm, Thomas thought it might be best to take the matter of a billet directly to Sister Crawley—there were plenty of ways he could give the impression that Major Clarkson had authorized him to do so—but unfortunately, he had no way to communicate that decision to Peter, who said, “Yes, sir. I’ll help either way, but I _was_ hoping there might be some way I could be assigned a billet. One of the difficulties of being presumed dead is that they don’t pay you, you see. They did give me a temporary ration book, to go with my leave pass, but apart from that all I’ve got is some Deutschmarks that are even more useless here than they are in Germany.”

Peter _did_ have a way of talking people into things that Thomas could never get away with, and by the time he’d wound to the end of this speech, Major Clarkson was nodding. “I’m sure you realize that, being on leave, you’re not entitled to a billet,” he said. “But with the recent departures, our billeting officer _may_ be able to arrange something. If she can, I won’t raise any objections.”

“Thank you, sir,” Peter said. 

Major Clarkson nodded, and said, “Since you’re here, Sergeant, there are a few things we might as well go over.”

Peter, accurately reading himself as dismissed, left the Major’s office. “Sir?” Thomas said.

“First, we have a few more medical panels coming up,” he said, handing Thomas a list. “They’re trying to get as many home for Christmas as they can.” 

Scanning the list, Thomas saw no patients who obviously _weren’t_ ready to go home. “Yes, sir.”

“We’ve also been told that this week’s convoy will be our last, and as such, I’ve been ordered to reduce staff accordingly.” He handed Thomas another, shorter list.

Thomas looked at it. Two men from the convalescent home, two from the hospital. “Griffiths, sir? He wanted to stay on.”

Major Clarkson winced a little. “With his eye, I’m afraid….” 

“I see.” God damned Army bastards. But at least his _own_ name wasn’t on it. He was always a little worried about that, when Major Clarkson handed him a demob roster.

He went on to talk a bit about the duty roster—shifting more men back here, as the hospital was closer to its full capacity than the convalescent home was. It was nothing Thomas could argue with—even if he’d been able to argue with Major Clarkson about anything—but it seemed there might actually be something for Peter to do, after all. “And I did check with my colleagues, as I said I would, about hospital positions,” he added.

Thomas actually dared to feel a bit hopeful—if Peter could come back from the dead, all miracles were possible—but Major Clarkson’s next words put him back in his place.

“I’m afraid their responses weren’t encouraging. It seems that most hospitals have more orderlies who would like to stay on than they have need for.”

“Sir.”

“But they _are_ getting a great many enquiries about private-duty nurses,” Major Clarkson said. “More than the registry can handle, apparently. More than one person suggested that an experienced manservant with hospital training could be the solution for some of those cases.” 

Valeting a crippled gentleman, again. This time yesterday, it would have been a glimmer of hope to hear some evidence that there really were jobs like that to be had, but now Thomas had a more serious objection than that finding such a place required more enthusiasm than he had. “Yes, sir. Thank you for checking that for me. But my brother’s return has changed the picture a bit—a lot, really. I can’t imagine I’ll be able to find a place as a valet where they’ll let me bring him with me.” 

And there was no question of their being separated again, even if they had to live in a ditch. Peter needed him to do up his tie for him, for one thing. 

“Of course,” Major Clarkson said. “Well. I’ll continue to keep an ear out for anything that might be suitable.” 

“Thank you, sir.” 

Leaving the Major’s office, Thomas found Peter already in consultation with Sister Crawley—charming her, of course. Thomas felt a stab of irrational jealousy, until he heard what Peter was saying. “—Deutschmarks that are even more useless here than they are in Germany.”

 _That_ made it all right, somehow. Like it was a secret they shared, that that was what Peter would say whenever he needed to get something out of somebody. 

“Well, I suppose I could manage something, as it will only be for a short time—our billeting allocation hasn’t _quite_ caught up with the recent departures, and I haven’t had time to notify the War Office that they’re sending us more funds than we’re strictly entitled to.”

“They have so much to do at the moment,” Peter said, with a sympathetic nod. “Everything all right, Thomas?”

“Perfect,” he said. 

“Your brother’s just been telling me all about his misadventures,” Sister Crawley said. 

_Misadventures_? “Has he?” It came out colder than Thomas meant it to. Or colder than it was politic for it to have done, which was nearly the same thing.

“Poor Thomas had the worst of it, really,” Peter said. “Thinking I was dead all that time.”

Sister Crawley nodded. “Of course.” To Thomas, she continued, “I can’t entirely understand, since Matthew was only missing for a short time, but it was the most dreadful time of my life. The waiting, and not knowing.”

She was right; she didn’t understand. Her not-knowing had ended with Mr. Matthew being alive. Thomas’s had ended with Peter being dead.

Except now he wasn’t. Would there ever come a day when that stopped seeming like a miracle? In a queerly ungrateful way, he hoped it would, because then he might be able to stop fearing that he’d wake up from what would be—if he did wake—the cruelest dream of his life. 

Peter was saying something now, to Sister Crawley, about Mr. Matthew and how sorry he was. “Thomas speaks very highly of him. I hope he learns to manage as well with his condition as I have with mine.”

A patient on the other side of the ward started calling for a nurse. “I must go,” Sister Crawley said. “But I’ll make some enquiries, and let you know this afternoon.”

When she had bustled off, Thomas said, “She usually comes up to see Mr. Matthew around tea-time. She’ll have you sorted out by then.”

As they walked back up to the house, Peter was at his most cheerful, talking about how good it was to be back in England, breathing free air, and with Thomas, of course. Thomas was, several times, on the brink of pointing out that this exquisite happiness was temporary—whatever arrangement Sister Crawley came up with would be temporary, and soon enough the convalescent home would close, and they would have to figure something out. 

But Peter was here, and he was happy, and Thomas didn’t want to spoil a minute of it—life would spoil it soon enough.

#

“She was angrier than I’d ever seen her,” Mr. Bates was saying. He and Anna were in the boot room, ostensibly cleaning shoes, really catching up on everything that had happened during his brief absence. “Thomas was right—it was the false confession she planned to reveal. When I told her to publish and be damned—it wouldn’t affect the divorce—she flew into a rage.” He touched the wound by his eye, which Anna had recently swabbed with antiseptic borrowed from the convalescent home store-room. 

“Do you think she’ll go ahead with it?” Anna asked. Mr. Bates had said that he was willing to go back to prison to be free of Vera, but she hoped it wouldn’t come to that. 

Mr. Bates shook his head. “I don’t know. When I left, she was vowing that she’d ruin me if it was the last thing she ever did.” He put aside the shoe he was cleaning. “But there’s no point in trying to guess what she’ll do, when there’s no way of stopping her.” Picking up another shoe, he went on, “I’m sorry I missed Mr. Fitzroy’s arrival. Thomas must have been over the moon.”

Anna graciously allowed the change of subject. “He was overwhelmed,” she agreed. 

“God knows the poor bastard deserves it,” Mr. Bates said. “Dare I hope that we’ll be seeing the pleasant version of him again?”

Thomas _had_ been at his prickliest the last few days. “I would say there’s a good chance.”

And it seemed she was right. When Thomas and Mr. Fitzroy came down to dinner—they’d seemed joined at the hip for most of the day, which Anna could understand—and Mr. Carson inquired meaningfully if Mr. Fitzroy had been “able to make other arrangements,” Thomas barely even bristled, just gazed adoringly at Mr. Fitzroy, who said, “Yes. The Ward-Sister was able to find me a billet with a couple called the Entwistles. I’m told they’re very nice.”

“But he’s working at the convalescent home,” Thomas added. “So he’ll be here a great deal.”

Mr. Carson did not look pleased, but he seemed, at least, resigned. “Remember what I said.”

“Trust me, I will,” Thomas shot back, with a hint of the old bitterness. 

Into the ensuing silence, Miss O’Brien said, “Goodness, it will be just like having Corporal Rawlins back.” She looked at Mr. Fitzroy’s left shoulder. “Or most of him.”

But Thomas managed not to rise to that bait, and said only, “Yes, I suppose it will.”

Miss O’Brien tried again. “I suppose Corporal Fitzroy knows _all about_ Corporal Rawlins?”

At that, Thomas did start to draw himself up, but Mr. Fitzroy just said pleasantly, “Of course. I wish I’d had a chance to meet him.”

Her quiver empty, Miss O’Brien subsided, and the meal passed without incident until, as they were finishing up, the bell for the front door rang. Mr. Carson went to answer it, saying that there was no need to hold the pudding until he returned—which was just as well, since it was only stewed prunes anyway. That sort of thing usually made Thomas mutter darkly about their sugar rations finding their way upstairs, but this time he held his peace.

Mr. Fitzroy spoke a bit about the rationing conditions in Germany. “Much more dire than here—just about everything edible is rationed, and some things that aren’t,” he was saying as Mr. Carson returned. 

“Telegram for you, Mr. Bates,” Mr. Carson said, handing him the envelope. 

Anna looked over at him, worried. Surely it had to be from the lawyer. As he opened it, his face darkened. Wordlessly, he shoved it into her hands, getting up and leaving the room. 

“What was that about?” Thomas asked. 

Anna looked at the telegram, willing the words to rearrange themselves into some kind of sense. It wasn’t from the lawyer. It was from the police. “His wife’s dead,” she said. “Someone found her this afternoon.” 

“What?” Thomas said. 

But now Anna was standing up, too. The telegram instructed Mr. Bates to telephone the police as quickly as he could, which must be what he’d gone to do. She went after him. 

#

“Suicide,” Bates said, leaning heavily on his cane. “Some sort of poison—they don’t know what kind, yet. They think she took it last night, right after I left.”

The four of them—Thomas and Peter, Bates and Anna—were standing outside, Peter and Thomas smoking. After Bates and Anna’s abrupt departure from the dinner, Thomas had brought Peter out here to fill him in on the situation, which they hadn’t gotten around to discussing last night. Anna and Bates had joined them a little while later, when Bates got off the ’phone with the police.

“Why do you suppose she did it?” Anna asked. 

Bates shook his head. “They didn’t find a note. She used to talk about it, sometimes. Say that if I didn’t do this or that, she’d kill herself. I always thought she was….being dramatic. Trying to get her way.”

No one pointed out that, now that Bates was a widower, he was free to marry Anna—in church, even, which was something he carried on about sometimes, depriving Anna of a church wedding. 

“I’m sure it’s upsetting,” Peter said. “Even though you were…no longer close.”

Bates looked at him with unflattering surprise. “Yes,” he agreed. “I never thought….I can’t help wondering whether there was something I might have done differently, short of staying married to her.” He sighed. “And now I’ve got to go down to London again. To give a statement, make formal identification of the body. It may even fall to me to make the arrangements, unless her lover steps forward to do it.”

Privately, Thomas thought that unlikely—if he cared, she’d wouldn’t have killed herself, would she? 

This time, at least, no one suggested that he look after Mr. Matthew while Bates was gone, even when his absence stretched to several days. It was just as well that Carson wouldn’t have let him do it anyway, since Thomas was occupied with the much more pressing matter of what to get Peter for Christmas. 

Also, what they were going to do for work, that would allow them to stay together, but Thomas much preferred thinking about the Christmas present quandary. It had to be perfect, as perfect as Peter was, but at the same time, it couldn’t require much in the way of money _or_ time, as they didn’t have enough of either. 

The rucksack of Peter’s effects had proved to contain—among other things—the lumpy and uneven scarf that Thomas had knitted for him, in the first Christmas of the war. Peter wore it everywhere now, and claimed it was his most treasured possession, but even if there had been time for Thomas to make another, he already _had_ one. 

In desperation, Thomas took to re-reading the little book of Peter’s letters, after Peter had gone to his billet for the night, in hopes of finding a hint about something he’d missed during his time in Germany. But apart from Thomas and, presumably, his _arm_ , there was nothing.

Of course, it was also very difficult to shop for a surprise for Peter, without letting Peter out of his sight for a moment more than necessary. On Christmas Eve, Thomas finally pulled himself away long enough to take a ‘bus to Thirsk and have a look round the shops, in hope of inspiration. 

The shops, of course, had plenty of things piled up under signs proclaiming that the articles in question were “The Perfect Christmas Gift!”—or even “The Perfect Christmas Gift for Your Returning Hero!”—but none of them were even close to perfect. Carpet slippers, neckties, razors in little velveteen cases, _gloves_ , none of it was right. 

When the shops were starting to close—and Thomas was getting anxious about not having seen Peter for _hours_ —he went into a tobacconists and bought a wind-proof lighter, twin to the one he’d carried the whole war. As an afterthought, he added a pack of cigarettes, remembering all the parcels he’d stuffed with them.

Peter cried when Thomas gave it to him. “Sorry,” he said, trying to mop at his eyes without putting the lighter down. “It’s just—” He sniffled. “All I got you was a bottle of brandy.” 

Brandy, like they’d had that day under the tree, before the war. Like they’d had here, in Thomas’s office, the night he’d come back to life. “That’s perfect,” he said. “But you didn’t have to get me anything.”

“Neither did you, you stupid ass,” Peter said, shoving his good shoulder against Thomas’s. Once he’d gotten his tears under control, he opened the pack of cigarettes—he had a deft way of managing it, one handed—and fished two out. Sticking them both in his mouth, he lit them, and handed one to Thomas. “Years, I’ve been waiting to do that,” he said, but fortunately didn’t start crying again.

It was a very good thing, he reflected, that he’d remembered to put fuel in the lighter before he wrapped it. “You’ve been doing it all along, you know,” Thomas reminded him, getting out his own lighter. Even the times he couldn’t bear to remember that it was Peter, it had still been him.

Later, after Thomas had cracked open the bottle of brandy, he screwed up his courage and said, “We can’t be separated again. Not after all this.”

“Of course not,” Peter said, sounding as though Thomas had just told him that water was wet.

“I mean it,” Thomas said. “I won’t be able to bear it. We’ve got to figure something out, so we can stay together.”

“I know,” Peter said. He put down his glass to take Thomas’s hand in his. “Dearest, I know. I’m not going anywhere without you.”

Of course he wasn’t, but that wasn’t the point. “How are we going to do it, though? We’ve got to live on something.”

“We’ll think of something,” Peter said. “I’ve got my demob appointment in a couple of days. They almost have to give me some sort of a pension, with this.” He shrugged his armless shoulder.

“It won’t be enough,” Thomas pointed out.

“No, but it’ll help,” he said. “And they give you money when you get demobbed—that’s one of the things they couldn’t decide what to do about, when I was there before. How to calculate my length of service, whether to charge me for all the kit I wasn’t bringing back—”

“ _Really_?” Thomas demanded. “They were worried about _that_?” Buggering Christ, why didn’t they charge him for the whole bloody ship, while they were at it?

“I _think_ ,” Peter said, “that they were trying to work out a way _not_ to charge me for it.”

Peter would think that. Thomas loved him so much, but he _would_ think the best of people. “Maybe,” he said grudgingly. 

“Anyway,” he continued, “we’ll each get a bit from that, and Sir H. might be good for something, when I go down to London to get my things.”

“He ought to be, since he’s the one who made you join up in the first place,” Thomas said. 

“Exactly. I’ll ask to see him, and tell him I’m sorry I won’t be able to come back to my old job, and we’ll see what happens.” 

“Even if he coughs up as much as your arm is worth, it won’t last forever,” Thomas pointed out.

“We’ll find jobs,” Peter said. “You certainly will, at least, and I may be able to come up with something, to supplement my pension. We’ll find a boarding house that isn’t too grim, and then once we’re on our feet, we’ll get something better. Perhaps even a house of our own, someday. No one will think anything of it, except how sweet it is that you take such good care of your poor, crippled brother.”

When he talked like that, Thomas could almost imagine it really happening.

#

“Anna,” Jane said, sitting down next to her with a piece of mending. “You’re friendly with Sergeant Barrow, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” she said warily. She’d had no reason, before, to tell Jane about Thomas—as a widow, she was unlikely to develop a silly crush on him. Mr. Fitzroy’s miraculous return now made the information more relevant, but also more dangerous. She hoped Jane wasn’t going to ask.

“Only I wondered whether I’d done something to offend him,” she said. “I’d had the impression he was avoiding me, and just now, in the passage, as I was coming down the stairs he turned and went back the way he’d come.”

Oh. Yes, Anna knew what that was—but not exactly how to explain it to Jane.

“Perhaps I’m just being silly,” she went on. “He might have realized he’d forgotten something. But I had the impression it was because he’d seen me.” 

“Yes,” Anna said. “I mean, no, you haven’t done anything to offend him. He’s…he mentioned wondering if Mr. Fitzroy turning up alive might…renew your grief, somehow, over your husband.” What he’d said, in fact, was that if it was Jane’s husband who’d come back from the dead, it would be all Thomas could do not to kick him in the teeth. But that was what he’d _meant_ , more or less. “So I expect he’s trying not to…well, rub it in.”

“Oh,” Jane said, looking more confused than enlightened. “I suppose that’s thoughtful of him,” she said uncertainly.

“He isn’t quite like other people,” Anna said. 

“I’d noticed that,” Jane said. “His brother seems much more…ordinary.”

Was she fishing, or had Anna simply been spending too much time around Thomas? “They weren’t brought up together,” she said. “They’re only half-brothers, really, but neither of them has any other family worth mentioning.” She felt a bit silly telling Jane the cover story, when nearly everyone else in the house knew the truth, but for all that Jane had been in the house for months now, Anna didn’t know her very well. It wasn’t that she was secretive—at least, not in the obvious way that, say, _Thomas_ was—but she spent most of her free time in the village, with her mother and her son. 

“Then I’m especially glad for him, that he’s gotten him back,” Jane said. “I hope you’ll tell him, that he needn’t feel…uncomfortable, around me.”

“I’ll tell him,” Anna agreed. Though whether Thomas would believe it was a different story.

Perhaps she’d tell him later, after Mr. Fitzroy came back. He’d gone to Ripon today, to be demobilized, and Thomas was _twitchy_ about it. If he wasn’t loitering in the downstairs corridor, he was haunting the front hall. Anna had eventually figured out, when he let slip that Peter had promised to ring if anything went wrong, that he was trying to stay as close as possible to the house’s two telephones. 

Anna hoped no one _did_ ring the house, because if they did, Thomas would probably have a heart attack. 

#

“—no, the top chap was back from his holidays,” Peter was saying when Thomas reached the bottom of the stairs. He’d been unobtrusively watching the doors and telephones all afternoon, but apparently Peter had turned up _just_ when Thomas had been called away to deal with a patient. Typical! 

As Thomas entered the servants’ hall, Peter continued, “But he’d just come back that morning, and hadn’t begun to think about it yet. There you are,” he added, reaching over his shoulder to catch at Thomas’s hand. 

Thomas knew he shouldn’t let him—Peter knew better, for that matter—but he couldn’t help himself. He did, at least, manage to change it to something that looked vaguely like a handshake. Though if anyone wondered why he was shaking his brother’s hand, when he’d seen him that morning, Thomas would not have any even halfway plausible explanation. “Have you had your tea?” Thomas ought to have put something aside for him; the orderlies’ tea had been ages ago.

“Yes,” Peter said. “They gave me a chit for the canteen. My last Army tea. Very sentimental.”

“You _are_ out now, then?” Thomas asked. Of course he was; there was no sensible reason they’d have kept him in the Army. 

Peter nodded. “Finally. I was just telling them—” He indicated Anna, Jane, and Daisy, “—that they kept calling me in, asking me a question or two, and telling me to come back in an hour.”

“Typical,” Thomas noted. 

“And I had to explain about my uniform everywhere I went,” Peter added. They had decided that he’d better go to the demob center in his inherited officer’s uniform, lest they make him hand in Thomas’s spare one, and then charge Thomas for not having it, when he was demobbed. Officer’s uniforms weren’t Army property—the officers bought them up-front—so they couldn’t really make Peter had _that_ in. “I was tempted to buy a demob suit, just so I could stop talking about it.”

All around the demob center, shops had popped up to sell men’s suits, conveniently priced just under the Army’s “Allowance for plain clothes”—which you only got if you turned in your uniform on the spot, of course. Since most men turned up at the demob centers without other clothes, they had little choice other than to buy what was being sold nearby—with predictable results in terms of quality. “Perish the thought,” Thomas said. 

“I thought better of it after I’d looked at a few,” Peter said. “Speaking of….” He took something out of his pocket and handed it to Thomas. 

It was a form labeled “Soldier’s Demobilization Account,” with a postal order folded up inside it, for nearly forty pounds. “Not bad,” Thomas said, sliding it back across the table to him. 

“I thought it was pretty good,” Peter agreed. “I don’t find out about the pension until later, but this’ll last me a bit.”

Jane asked, “How long do you suppose it’ll be until your turn, Sergeant?”

“Not long,” Thomas said. The steady trickle of patient departures had stopped for a few days around Christmas—medical panels were perfunctory now, but they still had them, and apparently doctors weren’t keen on attending them during the holidays—but they’d be starting up again now. 

Indeed, as they got into the New Year, not only did the genuinely convalescent patients leave, but the families of the more serious cases began to press to be allowed to move them nearer home. Since officers’ families were, almost by definition, well-connected, these requests were granted more often than not.

It probably didn’t hurt that, if the patients went to private nursing homes, the expense of their care was transferred from the War Office to the families themselves. Thomas took to collecting the names and addresses of these private nursing homes, and then writing to them about jobs, but the results were not encouraging.

 _Notwithstanding the excellent care provided by medical corpsmen during the war,_ a typical example went, _we find that our families are more comfortable having their patients cared for by nurses._

“It really isn’t fair,” Thomas said one day, after he and Nurse Crawley had finished seeing one of these cases loaded into an ambulance. “I did this work all war long, and now it’s over, suddenly only _women_ can do it?”

“Yes,” Nurse Crawley said dryly. “It must be dreadful being thought incapable because of your sex. I can’t imagine.”

Perhaps, Thomas thought, she wasn’t precisely the ideal person to hear that particular complaint. “Well, all right,” he muttered. “But it isn’t as though you need to earn a living.”

“Hm,” she said, looking faraway for a moment. “You never know. But look—why _don’t_ I speak to Papa? There must be _something_ you can do here.” 

While Thomas was trying to decide which to start with, of the many reasons that would never work, she went on.

“I understand that being a servant isn’t what you want, but you can keep looking. Perhaps once things have settled down again, some opportunity will present itself.”

Opportunities might _present themselves_ for people like her, but not for people like him. But he couldn’t say that. “It isn’t just that,” he said. “I’ve Peter—Mr. Fitzroy—to think of now. With his arm, he can’t live on his own. I’ve got to find something where I can have him with me.”

“But that’s what I mean,” she said. “You couldn’t take your ‘brother’ along to work in another house, but we all understand about him, here.” 

“Mr. Carson won’t have it,” Thomas said, more sharply than he should have. “I mean, thank you for thinking about it, but even if his lordship _forced_ him to take me back, he’d drive me to suicide within a month. And I can’t do gardening, like poor old Lang—you need two good arms for that. There’s nothing here, that I’m even _remotely_ qualified for, that isn’t under Carson.” 

Nurse Crawley sighed. “There _must_ be a solution we’re not seeing.” 

No, there really didn’t. But that was the sort of thing that Lady Sybil would never understand. 

#

“Anna,” Lady Sybil said, as Anna arranged her hair for dinner—the Dowager was joining them, and Lady Sybil had agreed to make an effort for the occasion. “Has Sergeant Barrow said anything to you about what he and Corporal Fitzroy are going to do, once the last patients have gone?”

Anna met her eyes in the mirror. “He hasn’t, my lady. Mr. Fitzroy says he’s very worried about it. Thomas is, I mean.” Thomas was no more willing to discuss the subject than he had been before Mr. Fitzroy’s return. 

“That’s what I wondered. Just…how worried he is.”

“It’s hard to say,” Anna said. 

Lady Sybil bit her lip. “I don’t suppose he could really….”

“My lady?”

“It’s just that he said something about.” She hesitated, and then went on in a rush, “About taking his own life. I think it was a joke. I hope it was.”

Now it was Anna’s turn to hesitate. “He’s mentioned it before. Not in a way that sounded as though he were serious.” But John had never thought that Vera was serious about it, either. “And not since Mr. Fitzroy’s been back.”

“This was earlier today,” Lady Sybil said. “I don’t think he was serious. I’m sure he wasn’t. But I can’t help thinking about Lieutenant Courtenay.”

The blind man, whom she and Thomas had liked? “My lady?”

“He was being sent away—this was before we had the convalescent home—and he wasn’t ready, and—well. Sergeant Barrow found him in time. Before that, we talked—the three of us—about how war throws people together, makes you care about each other, and then the Army doesn’t care about that, and—” She shook her head. “It just reminded me, somehow.”

Thomas, Anna remembered, had thought that Henry Lang might commit suicide, if he couldn’t see a future for himself. He’d mentioned having seen it happen before—it must have been Courtenay that he was thinking of. 

And it had been being sacked—being without a job—that Thomas had thought might drive Henry to it. “Yes,” she said, omitting _my lady_ , this time, because they were speaking as two of Thomas’s friends, not as employer and servant. “When Henry—the footman—had his troubles, Thomas was worried that he might…do something like that. I don’t know whether he was right,” she added hastily. “But that’s what he thought. And that’s why he thought it so important, to sort out the gardening job. So that he’d have at least one option, besides…that.” 

Now Lady Sybil’s eyes met hers in the mirror. “He mentioned Lang to me, as well. Today, I mean. He said that he couldn’t get work as a gardener, like we arranged for Lang, because of his injury.”

“I could try to speak to him,” Anna said, knowing even as she said it that it wouldn’t do much good. Thomas was wildly unlikely to take her up on an opportunity to talk about his feelings, and simply knowing that they cared wasn’t the sort of thing that would matter to him. 

Lady Sybil arrived at the crucial point more quickly than she did. “We must come up with something for him,” she said. “Like he did for Lang. Even if he isn’t…if it isn’t really necessary, it won’t do any harm.”

It was a kind thought—and was, precisely, the kind of expression of sympathy that Thomas would understand—but…. “I’m afraid Mr. Carson is quite firm on not having him back,” she said. “Mrs. Hughes and I checked into it, a while ago.”

She nodded. “He said the same thing. Something that doesn’t involve Carson.”

It was all very well, Anna, thought, for Lady Sybil to say that—but what? They were two women, and whether one of them was a lady or not, their sphere of influence stopped at the doors to this house.

#

A few days later, Major Clarkson called together all of the staff—orderlies and nurses alike—and announced that the convalescent home would be closing in three weeks’ time. Any patients still the Army’s responsibility at that time would be transferred to Leeds General. VADs were to be discharged the day the last patients left; the orderlies would report to the demob center a few days later, to allow time for packing up all the hospital equipment. 

So that was it. Lady Grantham had been told the news even before the staff, of course, and by that night’s dinner, everyone in the servants’ hall knew that they were, as her ladyship put it, “Getting the house back.” 

Carson spoke at some length about his hopes that the “end of the war will bring about the return of the footmen,” sparing no opportunity to glare at Thomas as he discussed the process of advertising for them, and emphasizing that he expected applicants to be plentiful.

Not even Peter could have thought for a moment that he was hinting that present company ought to apply, and by the fifth or sixth time this occurred, Thomas had had enough. “Are you so sure you’ll be here making those decisions, then, Mr. Carson?”

Carson glared some more. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You did say you’d hand in your notice if _I_ stayed.” 

“ _Thomas_ ,” Peter hissed—and nearly made Thomas miss Carson gulping and going pale, in the brief instant between absorbing Thomas’s meaning and concluding—correctly, unfortunately—that Thomas was talking out his arse. 

“I wasn’t aware you’d been offered a position, Sergeant,” Carson said. “Goodness me, I can’t imagine how I’d have missed a thing like that.”

“Well, not _formally_ ,” Thomas said, because now that he’d started this—and why in God’s name had he?—he couldn’t back down. “But there’s some upstairs who think I ought to stay.”

“As _what_?” Carson demanded. 

Thomas shrugged a little. Was he really going to say this? “There’d be a vacancy for a butler.” Apparently he _was_ going to say it. This time Carson went purple instead of pale. 

“What, really?” asked Daisy, who was bringing round more bread. 

“Of course not, you silly sausage,” O’Brien said. “Thomas is just telling fairy stories.”

That stung, because she was right. No one with an ounce of sense in their head would think that Lady Sybil suggesting he might have some chance of being taken back on if he begged for it meant that they’d make him _butler_ , of all things. If word of this got upstairs, they’d think he was _insane_. “No,” he told Daisy. “I was just winding up Mr. Carson.”

“And that’s enough of that,” Mrs. Hughes said sharply. 

“Yes, Mrs. Hughes,” Thomas said obediently. 

Later, after Carson and Mrs. Hughes had left, Anna said, “You _could_ be a butler, couldn’t you?”

“Don’t start,” Thomas said. He’d already admitted he’d been taking the piss; what more did they want?

“No, I mean it,” she said. “At a smaller house, probably. But you ran the whole convalescent home. Being a butler can’t be much more difficult.”

It wasn’t, but that wasn’t the point. No one would give him a job as a butler—except in a fairy story, like O’Brien had said. “I’m not old enough to be a butler,” he said. It wasn’t the most important reason, but it was the simplest.

Peter said, “Theo isn’t—wasn’t—that much older than us.”

“Theo had magic powers,” Thomas reminded him. People liked him, for one thing. And there was that thing he did where he remembered everything about everyone. “ _You_ could be a butler, maybe.”

“I’m not sure there’s a market for one-armed butlers,” Peter said. 

About as much of a market as there was for surly, queer butlers who, when it came to waiting at table, might as _well_ have only one arm. But Thomas just said, “There ought to be.”

#

“Robert,” Cora said, turning around from her dressing table when Robert went into their bedroom. O’Brien was standing at her shoulder, with a hairbrush and an expression of excessive innocence. “You haven’t said anything to Thomas that would give him the idea that if Carson left, we’d make him butler, have you?”

 _What?_ “Of course not.” With a wary glance at O’Brien—he _did_ wish Cora would dismiss her, at least from the room, if not entirely—he said, “Sybil was asking if we might be able to find something for him, but certainly not _that_.” He was more than a bit young for a butler, on top of their already having one. 

“You see, my lady?” O’Brien asked. “I’m afraid he’s gotten some rather grand ideas about himself.” She shook her head sadly. 

Cora glanced up at her. “Thank you, O’Brien,” she said coolly, and gestured toward her hair. O’Brien resumed brushing it. “What sort of something?” she asked. 

“I haven’t had a chance to think about it yet,” Robert said. If Thomas was thinking in terms of something as lofty as _butler_ , Robert wouldn’t need to. But Sybil had seemed to think that he was worried about being able to find anything at all—particularly something where he could have his “brother” with him. He might have said as much to Cora, but not with O’Brien standing right there, and by the time she left, their minds had turned to other things.

He didn’t entirely forget the question, though, and so when Bates came to dress him in the morning, he said, “I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything about Sergeant Barrow gunning for Carson’s job, have you?”

Bates, reaching for Robert’s tie, made a strangled sort of sound. “No, my lord. That is, he was needling Mr. Carson on the subject, but he wasn’t serious.” 

“I thought it might be something like that.” He raised his chin for Bates to put the tie around his neck. “Has he found a place yet?”

“I don’t believe so, no, my lord.” 

“What sort of thing _is_ he looking for?”

Bates opened his mouth, and closed it again. “It’s hard to say. He gets…snappish, when the subject is raised. Mr. Fitzroy is a bit more willing to discuss the subject, but he doesn’t seem to have any particular ideas, either.”

That wasn’t very helpful. “If he wanted to be a footman again, _I’d_ have no objection to having him back, but he’d have to find a way to get along with Carson,” Robert said. “And I don’t know what we’d do about Fitzroy. Won’t the Army give him a pension, for his arm?”

“He’s expecting one, my lord, but they don’t anticipate it will be enough to live on. And he’d have a very difficult time managing on his own, even if they were willing to be separated.”

“Yes, of course.” He remembered standing in this room, trying to sort out some way to get out of having to sack poor Henry Lang, and Bates telling him that Thomas had come up with the perfect solution. It was a pity he couldn’t come up with something just as neat for himself. “I’ll keep thinking about it,” he said, and changed the subject. “Have you finally finished settling things with the late Mrs. Bates?” He hadn’t had to make any trips to London lately.

“I believe so, my lord. That is, I’ve settled her bills and cleared out the house and so forth, but the police tell me they aren’t quite finished with their end of things….”

#

“RAMC,” the stranger read off the tabs on Thomas’s tunic. “That’s Medical Corps, right?” A Yank, from the sound of him.

“Yeah,” Thomas said, giving the bloke a disinterested sort of glance. It wasn’t the right sort of place for anything else, and even if it had been, he was _taken_. 

“Guess you’ll be in the Army for a while yet,” the stranger said.

“Guess that, and you’d be wrong,” Thomas answered. He’d come to Leeds to make some arrangements for the transfer of the remaining patients, and stopped in this pub for a pint before heading home. “I’ve got about a week.” A week until he was unemployed.

“You don’t sound like you’re looking forward to it.” He held out his hand. “I’m Hank, by the way.”

Thomas shook it reluctantly. “Barrow.”

Hank looked at him expectantly for a moment, and then, when he didn’t say or do anything else, asked, “Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Looking forward to it. Being—whaddyou guys call it? De-mobbed?”

“Not particularly.” 

“I know how you feel,” Hank said, with a big sigh. “They’re sending me home in about two, two and a half weeks. It sure will be great to see my girl again, but I wouldn’t mind a couple more weeks here in merry old England.”

It was nearly a half an hour until the train back to Downton. Thomas weighed the relative merits of waiting for it out in the cold, versus continuing this conversation and decided, by a thin margin, to play along. “Why’s that?”

“Well, I just came into a business opportunity,” Hank explained. “If it had all worked out, I would have made enough dough to set me and Betty—that’s my girl—up real nice.” He sighed dejectedly. “Now I’ll be lucky if I can get back my investment before I have to leave.” 

Thomas sipped at his pint. Not even an American would be dumb enough to try and unload a _legitimate_ business opportunity to a stranger in a pub. But that did leave _some_ room to maneuver. “What kind of business opportunity?”

#

“Find anything promising?” Anna asked, nodding towards the newspaper Mr. Fitzroy had in front of him on the servants’ hall table. It was opened to the “Situations Vacant” section. She’d not have dared ask that question with Thomas anywhere in earshot, for fear of getting her head bitten off, but he was in Leeds on hospital business.

“Not really,” Mr. Fitzroy said, with a sigh. “Most of what’s going are skilled jobs. Plumber’s mate, builder, railway conductor, baker. Restaurant waiter might’ve worked, if not for his shoulder.”

“Do you think something will turn up?” She’d not have dared ask that question of Thomas, either. Lady Sybil had reported that Lord Grantham didn’t have any ideas, either, although she was optimistic that something might come to him later. 

But with the closing of the convalescent home looming, they might not have much time. 

“It’ll have to,” Mr. Fitzroy answered. “Something in a shop would be good, I think. I haven’t seen many of those in the paper, but they probably mostly put a sign in the window, don’t you think? Once he’s finished here, we’ll go to York or Leeds or somewhere, so we can look around in person.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Anna agreed. 

Mr. Fitzroy sighed. “I’m not,” he admitted. “We’ll find something,” he added quickly. “But it might be….” He trailed off. “Which do you think he’d hate worse—he works in a factory and we live in a boardinghouse together, or he gets a place as a valet, and I find a nearby widow who’s willing to take in a lodger?”

Anna couldn’t imagine Thomas working in a _factory_ , doing work that was rough and dirty and mindless. Valet was what he’d always wanted, but if he had to be apart from Mr. Fitzroy…. “I couldn’t say.” She had never quite found the right moment to confide in Mr. Fitzroy what she and Lady Sybil were worried about—nor quite decided if it was a good idea to do so. But it seemed that Mr. Fitzroy was already thinking along similar lines, of last-resport options. 

“If it’s the first one, and it really comes down to it, I’ll write that Rawlins fellow and _beg_ ,” Mr. Fitzroy said, confirming what she’d just thought. “You know him—do you think he’d pretend it was his idea? I’m not sure Thomas could stand it, otherwise.”

That’s right—Corporal Rawlins’s father managed a factory of some kind, didn’t he? “I expect he would,” she said. “He thinks a lot of Thomas.” 

“For the other,” Mr. Fitzroy continued, slipping a piece of notepaper out from under the newspaper, “what do you think of that?”

 _Experienced manservant_ , Anna read, _wartime hospital orderly, seeks position as valet. Ideal for crippled gentleman. Excellent character_. “It _ought_ to work,” she said. 

Thomas would have pointed out that _ought_ buttered no parsnips, but Mr. Fitzroy said, “There are quite a few ‘Situations Vacant’ for private-duty nurses. I even thought of replying to some of those—a hospital-trained valet isn’t something most people would think to look for, but it might be just the ticket if they knew it was an option.” 

That was just what Anna had been thinking—before Mr. Fitzroy came back. “I didn’t think you were too terribly worried, about…it.” 

“Thomas is worried enough for both of us,” he said, slipping the paper into his pocket—he’d taken to wearing one of Thomas’s old suits, now that he was out of uniform. “Hope for the best, plan for the worst; that’s my motto. You never know—he certainly can’t apply for places as a valet saying he needs to bring his brother with him, but perhaps once he’s gotten the place and made himself invaluable, it would seem a bit more reasonable. Or he could start out working on a factory line, and eventually they figure out how clever he is and move him into something better.”

Put that way, it did seem plausible. “Thomas doesn’t see it that way,” she noted.

“No,” Mr. Fitzroy agreed. “He’ll plan out every possible way that a thing could go wrong, but he’ll barely even let himself _think_ that things might start out a bit…un-promising, but then get better.” He got out his cigarettes and, receiving a nod of permission from Anna, lit one. “Shortly before we met, something happened that was fairly terrible, and that he wasn’t expecting at all. I think he decided then that he’d never be taken by surprise like that again.” 

“You mean about his father?” Anna asked. 

Mr. Fitzroy glanced at her sharply. “He told you about that?”

“When you—died,” she said. “He said someone alive ought to know.”

Mr. Fitzroy went quiet for a moment, as Anna supposed anyone would after being reminded of his own presumed death. He shook it off, though, and said, “Yes, that was it. He says he knew all along his father didn’t like him, but it isn’t the sort of thing anyone would see coming. Finding out your Dad’s not your Dad, and he always knew it?” 

“No,” Anna said. “Nobody could expect that.” Not even someone whose first thought, hearing that a man’s estranged wife was desperate to see him, was that she was planning a murder. 

Though, given that she’d committed suicide right after Mr. Bates left, Thomas hadn’t been _too_ far wrong. Perhaps she’d even planned to give the poison to Mr. Bates as well—a murder-suicide; didn’t that happen sometimes?—but he hadn’t eaten or drunk whatever it was. 

But Mr. Fitzroy was continuing, “So he’s always expecting something awful to come out of nowhere, and he thinks—unconsciously, of course—that if he can’t stop it happening, at least he can anticipate it.” He shrugged the shoulder with the missing arm, which Anna always found a little unsettling. “Or that’s what I thought after I tried to read Freud.”

Anna had _heard_ of Freud, and had a vague idea that he wrote about dreams and things. “He’s German, isn’t he?”

“Austrian, I think,” Mr. Fitzroy said doubtfully. “I read it in Germany, but the book was a French translation. There was a lot I didn’t get, and some that I thought was nonsense, but it gave me some things to think about.”

Mr. Fitzroy nattered on for a while about the unconscious mind, and repression, and various other things that Freud had apparently written about. Anna was reminded of how Thomas enjoyed showing off the pockets of esoteric knowledge he’d picked up from God-knows-where. She wondered which of them had picked up the habit from the other. 

#

“So he has a whole _shed_ full of stuff,” Thomas explained. “Sugar, condensed milk, white flour—all kinds of things that are rationed or hard to find. He’ll sell the lot to us for a hundred pounds, but it’ll be worth at least four times that. At _least_.”

“I don’t know, dearest,” Peter said. “Why would he give such a good opportunity to a stranger in a pub?”

“Because he has to get rid of the stuff before they send him back to America,” Thomas reminded him. “I’m sure he’s lying about having paid a hundred pounds for it in the first place—he’s got to be making _something_ —but whatever he paid, it’s worth a lot more than he’s asking.”

“I understand that, but doesn’t he have any _friends_ he could sell it to?”

Thomas wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything. “I suppose his mates are all going back to America with him.” 

“Or he doesn’t want to involve them in—whatever this is. You realize the stuff has to be stolen.”

“Even if it is, _I_ didn’t steal it,” Thomas said. “The American stuff, yeah, he probably stole it from his own side. But the Americans won’t come after two blokes in Yorkshire who’ve never set foot on an American base, and our police aren’t bothering about black market dealing, not now the war’s over.” 

“Have you _seen_ the goods?” Peter asked. “How do we even know he really has them?”

“Not yet,” Thomas admitted. “But I’m not a child. I won’t give him the money until I _have_ seen it. I won’t even take it out of our postal accounts until we’re sure—if he’s thinking he’ll take me to some back alley and then a half-dozen of his mates pop out and grab the money, all he’ll get is a couple of shillings.” 

“And all you’ll get is beaten bloody,” Peter pointed out.

“That’s a risk I’m willing to take. Look,” he said, taking out the notes he’d scribbled on the train back. “We buy the stuff, we rent a shed to put it all in, and here’s our living expenses while we sell it. Here’s the profit.” He pointed. “And that’s the _low_ figure. We’ll probably get more. With all that money, we can open up a real shop. Fitzroy and Barrow, Fine Groceries. We’ll both work there, and we’ll live above the shop. I’ll do the recordkeeping—it can’t be too different from hospital supply inventories—and you’ll do the charming-the-customers bit. It’ll be all our own, and nobody can take it away from us.”

Peter lit two cigarettes and passed one to Thomas. “It would be lovely—I’ve been thinking that working in a shop would be the perfect thing for us. But we’d be risking just about every penny we have.”

“That’s the beauty of it,” Thomas said. “If it goes wrong—if the rationing stops the day after we buy it, say—we won’t make a profit, but it’ll still be worth something. And it might take longer to sell than I figured on, but none of its perishable. As long as we manage not to get robbed, we really can’t end up much worse off than we started. Trust me.”

“I do trust _you_ ,” Peter said. “It’s the bloke you met in the pub I’m not so sure about.”

#

“Of course, I feel a bit ridiculous telling you this,” Mr. Fitzroy concluded, “after saying yesterday how Thomas always expects the worst to happen.”

Anna had to admit, the tale Mr. Fitzroy had just told had so many hallmarks of a confidence scam that she thought even _Daisy_ would smell a rat, let alone Thomas. 

He went on, “But he’s always had a weak spot for a sudden reversal of fortune. He’s more likely to gamble on a long shot than bank on a bit of ordinary good luck or human kindness.” He sighed. “And I’ve never been very good at bringing him back to earth.” 

“Well, you can’t put all of your money into a scam just because you don’t want to disappoint him,” Anna pointed out. 

“No,” he said. “I’m not _too_ worried about losing it all on a scam, really. Thomas _has_ thought of that, and between the two of us, I think we’ve thought of most what this Hank the Yank could be pulling.”

“Oh?” Anna said.

“Every housewife in Germany had to be an expert in black market scams by war’s end,” he elaborated, “and our civilian workers taught us all the tricks before we left—opening packets along the seam and refilling them with brick dust, and so on. Some of them even found a way to empty out a tin through a pinhole—a tin of oil or condensed milk, say—seal it up again after they’d refilled it with water. If it’s something like that, I’ll spot it, and Thomas has thought through a number of ways they could get the money and run without giving us anything for it.”

Of course he had—though Anna was reassured to hear it. “But you’re still worried?”

He looked away. “I’m not sure how it is here, but the black market in Germany…everyone dealt in it; they’d have starved if they hadn’t. It was mostly desperate people and confidence tricksters, but there were some serious criminals, too. The kind who wouldn’t let you just walk away if you tumbled to the scam.”

Anna hadn’t thought of that, and it was hard to believe there could be anything like that in _Yorkshire_. But these were Americans. Most of the country was perfectly civilized—look at her ladyship—but there were parts that weren’t too far off from the days of the Wild West. “I suppose it could be dangerous,” she said. “Though I think an confidence trick is more likely. Or trouble with the police.” 

Mr. Fitzroy nodded. “He says the police aren’t too bothered about the black market, but I wonder if he’s right.”

Anna hesitated. “I don’t think they go looking for people who’d bought from it,” she said. Mrs. Patmore, she knew, dabbled a bit. “But selling might be a different matter.” 

“That’s what I was thinking,” he agreed. “I’m not sure who he’d have heard about the selling side of it from, apart from this Hank, who….”

“Has every reason to lie,” she finished. “However you look at it, it really isn’t the most _practical_ plan.”

“No,” Mr. Fitzroy said sadly. “He wants us to take the profits from this…scheme, and have our own shop. He’s always wanted a shop.”

Anna recalled that Thomas’s father—or rather, not his father—had owned a clock shop. “A grocery shop?” she asked. 

“Not exactly, but I suppose it’s good enough. God knows I’d cut off my other arm if it would get him the clock shop back, but…this isn’t that.” 

No, it wasn’t. “Would you really make enough money for a shop? If it all went well?”

“Possibly. He’s suggested that, if the rationing goes on long enough, we can find another supplier and re-invest the profit from the first lot.”

Was that really likely? The first “supplier” had been found by pure chance…but perhaps if they were operating in the black market, they’d come into contact with others. But surely that would increase the chances of running into trouble with the authorities—or encountering some of those serious criminals that Mr. Fitzroy had mentioned. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.” 

Mr. Fitzroy slumped. “You’re right. I was hoping you’d see it differently, but….” He sighed. “Will you help me talk some sense into him?”

Anna couldn’t begin to imagine how she could possibly talk Thomas out of something that Mr. Fitzroy couldn’t, but she said, “I’ll certainly try.”

#

“So you’d be interested, once I have the stuff?” Thomas asked. Mrs. Patmore had been complaining again about the rationing, and he’d taken the opportunity to pull her aside and suggest that he and Peter could be the household’s newest suppliers.

“Only if it’s good quality, mind you,” she said. 

“But of course,” Thomas said. He strolled out of the kitchen and back to the servants’ hall, where Peter was talking with Anna. “I’ve just lined up our first customer,” he announced proudly—but quietly enough that Jane, a few seats down, wouldn’t hear enough to feel she could ask questions. 

Peter and Anna exchanged a look that Thomas didn’t like very much. “Mrs. Patmore?” Peter said.

“She jumped at the chance,” Thomas said, embellishing a bit. “This stuff is going to nearly sell itself.” As much food as the house went through, she’d be good for a sizeable share of their inventory, and once word got round that the big house was buying from them—well!

Peter reached for his cigarettes. “Let’s go outside,” he suggested.

There was no real reason they had to—O’Brien was off somewhere—but Thomas agreed. Anna followed, which gave Thomas an unsettled sort of feeling. 

“So, about this black market business,” Peter began, once they’d lit up. 

“Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet,” Thomas said, trying to keep his tone light. 

Peter sighed. “It just seems risky.”

Of course it did. It _was_ risky; Thomas knew that. “Have you got any better ideas?” he asked. It came out a bit more harshly than he intended. “I mean—do you?” 

“Not really,” Peter admitted. He glanced over at Anna. 

Anna said, “If you want to have a shop, wouldn’t it be more sensible to save up for it in the ordinary way?”

“Save up _what_?” Thomas demanded. So they were ganging up on him now, were they? “What exactly is it that you think we’re going to be doing, that will earn us enough to save up for a shop?”

Anna pressed her lips together. 

Turning back to Peter, Thomas said, “Our demob payouts are probably the most money we’re ever going to have all at one time. We can use them to live on for a few months, and then end up back exactly where we are, or we can _try_ to turn them into something that’ll last. If it doesn’t work, we’re no worse off.”

Peter looked pleadingly at Anna again. Yes, they were definitely ganging up on him. “Unless you…well, unless there’s trouble with the police,” she said. 

“We know how to avoid the police,” Thomas said. 

“Not when it comes to this sort of thing,” Peter pointed out. “It’s all very well to say they aren’t bothering about the black market, but that could change.”

“I know it could,” Thomas said. “It does, we get out fast, that’s all.” They’d have to sacrifice some of their profits to do it, but Thomas wouldn’t put Peter in danger.

Peter looked away. 

“Look,” Thomas said. “If you don’t want to do it, of course we won’t. But it’s the best shot we have.” He reached into Peter’s pocket and took out the scrap of paper he’d found when he was brushing it the other day—the one that started out, _Experienced manservant seeks_. “This? We’re not doing this. We’re not.” 

“It was just something I was thinking about,” Peter said. 

“Well, you can stop thinking about it.” Now it was Thomas’s turn to look away. 

Finally, Peter said, “I don’t suppose it’ll hurt anything to go and meet with the bloke again.” 

His tone was resigned, but Thomas decided he’d take it. “It won’t,” he agreed. “I won’t take any money along, and if it is a scam, then at least we’ll know.” 

Peter nodded. “We’ll know,” he agreed. “But I’m going with you.” 

He said it as though he expected an argument, but Thomas wasn’t sure why. “If you want to,” he said. 

Thomas telephoned the pub, as they’d arranged, and left a message for Hank. He set the meeting for late afternoon on the day the patients left—he’d dismiss the men for the day, telling them to report back bright and early the next morning to begin the work of packing up. They certainly wouldn’t ask any questions.

It was just as well to have something to look forward to that day, since otherwise it could have been a bit grim. As the last ambulance pulled away, he and Nurse Crawley stood in the doorway, watching it go. 

“Well,” she said, reaching behind her head to untie her headscarf. “That’s that.” 

“It is,” Thomas agreed. “My lady.”

She gave him a wry smile. “I wonder if I’ll get used to that again?”

If it had been Nurse Crawley standing there, Thomas would have told her she certainly would. But as it was Lady Sybil, he didn’t take the liberty. 

There were a few chores that couldn’t be put off until the next day—stripping the beds and taking the luncheon things down to the kitchen, for instance. But once those were finished, Thomas and Peter were on their way to Leeds.

“We’re going to need new suits, if we’re going to be businessmen,” Thomas remarked as they rode. “Everything we have is years out of date.”

“As long as we don’t buy them in Ripon,” Peter said. 

When they got to the pub, another Yank was sitting with Hank. Hank introduced him as “Bill,” and candidly explained that he’d brought him along in case of trouble. “No offense,” he said, “but you never know what kind of guys you’re going to meet, in the black market.”

It was, Thomas had to admit, a nice touch—acknowledging that he knew they had to be suspicious of him, as well. “Not at all,” he said. “This is my business partner, Fitzroy.”

Bill eyed him warily. “You a Jerry?”

“No,” Peter said. “Fitzroy is the surname traditionally given to illegitimate sons of the king of England.” This was a detail he trotted out on occasion; unlike the Italian count story, it had the advantage of being true. “Family lore has it we’re descended from one of the Henrys, but no one’s sure which one.”

Thomas collected a couple of pints from the bar—Hank and Bill already had theirs—and they settled down to business. Hank had brought along a list of what he had to sell, which tallied pretty well with what he’d told Thomas the other day. “I gotta tell you, I’ve got some other guys interested, too. Are you ready to do business?”

Thomas and Peter exchanged a look. One of the things they’d discussed was how, if Hank was trying to pull something on them, he wouldn’t want to give them too much time to think about it. “I won’t be getting my demob payment for a few days yet,” he said, indicating his uniform. 

Bill and Hank exchanged a look of their own. “I sure would like to hold it for you,” Hank said. 

“Better not,” Bill said. “Suppose you wait around for these jokers, and then they back out? You might not have time to find another buyer before you ship out. First come, first serve; that’s my advice.”

Hank considered this. “It’s not that I don’t trust you guys,” he said. “But I’ve only got one shot, you know.” He gestured at Peter’s civilian clothes. “It looks like the prince here’s out of the Army. I suppose I could hold it for you if I had half up front.”

“Say, that’s an idea,” Bill said. 

“Nothing doing,” Peter said. “What’s to stop you from turning around and selling the supplies to someone else?”

They went round and round on that subject for a bit, until Thomas introduced the point that they would, naturally, not think of handing over so much as tuppence before they’d seen that the goods they were buying really existed. 

“Oh, we can show you the goods, no problem,” Hank said, sounding relieved. “Soon as we finish these beers, okay?”

If he thought that Thomas had tacitly agreed to the half-up-front, that was his look-out. “Sure,” he said, and tried to think of a way to get Peter to wait here. Hank and Bill didn’t seem like violent types, but you never knew. If this was about to go sour, he’d just as soon Peter was somewhere else when it did.

The only thing he could come up with was to lag a bit behind the two Yanks, on their way out, and ask Peter, in a whisper. But he wasn’t having it. “If you think I’m letting you go off on your own with them, you’re mad.” 

So all four of them went. Hank’s shed was a few streets away, behind a row of small but well-maintained houses. There was a large padlock on the door, which he unlocked with a flourish. “Ta-da!”

It was a veritable Aladdin’s cave of rationed foodstuffs. Crates and sacks were piled in the middle of the space, with shelves lining the walls to hold the smaller goods. Sacks of rice, packets of sugar, tins of oil, two whole crates of condensed milk. There were tins of fruit, treacle, potted meat and tinned salmon. 

When Peter started picking things up and inspecting them, Bill started forward, but Hank held up a restraining hand. “They’ve gotta see the stuff’s good,” he pointed out. 

“Our best customer is very concerned about quality,” Thomas said, looking at a shelf of spices. Mrs. Patmore had asked about those specifically. Ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, paprika—it was all here. 

After a few moments of inspecting the goods, Hank started making noises about “doing business today” again. “Tell you what,” Peter said. “You want to do business today, we’ll take some samples.”

At Hank’s hesitant look, Thomas added, “Retail price.”

“We’re not lookin’ to sell this stuff off piecemeal,” Bill objected. At some point—Thomas wasn’t sure when—he’d given up the pretense of just being along for the ride. Thomas couldn’t think of any particular reason Hank would have wanted to keep it a secret that he had a business partner, too, but he supposed it didn’t matter. 

“I understand,” Thomas said. “But this is the sprat to catch the mackerel. Our customer is satisfied, we come back and take the lot.”

There was a bit or wrangling over that, and at one point, Thomas and Peter were ejected into the alley to smoke cigarettes and try not to look as though they were up to anything, while Hank and Bill conferred privately. 

“They wouldn’t be entertaining this idea if they really had other blokes ready to buy,” Thomas observed as they waited. “They might have somebody else on the string, but they’re not sure about them.”

Peter nodded. “You catch how Bill’s playing the hard-nosed negotiator, while Hank’s all _gee whiz, I’d sure like to help you guys_? They’ve planned this out.”

“So did we,” Thomas pointed out. “And your American accent is terrible.” He took a puff from his cigarette. “The stuff looks good to me.”

“We don’t know what American Army food packages are supposed to look like,” Peter reminded him. “We’ll see what Mrs. P. thinks of it.”

“That was a good idea,” Thomas allowed. 

In due course, Hank and Bill admitted them back into the shed, and agreed to let them take a limited selection of goods. “Just the stuff we’ve got plenty of,” Hank said. “The spices and things, we’ve gotta have those to draw in the next buyer, if you guys disappear.”

Thomas agreed to this, and Bill loaded up a US Army rucksack with some flour and sugar, a tin of oil, a packet of powdered eggs, and a few other things. They handed over a pound for it, which was just about all the cash they had on them—luckily, they’d gotten return tickets for the train—and set out.

“See?” Thomas said, as they walked to the railway station. “Perfectly nice, honest sellers of stolen goods. You’re too cynical sometimes.”

Peter laughed, and shoved his shoulder against Thomas’s. “This could work,” he admitted. “If this stuff really is good…it could work.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying,” Thomas reminded him.

#

“It’s just something his lordship said recently, I can’t get out of my mind,” Mr. Bates said. “How Vera must have bought the poison ahead of time.”

Anna had an uneasy feeling in her stomach. “Yes, I suppose she must. And it’s a terrible thing to think of, but—” _You mustn’t blame yourself_ , she had been going to say, but Mr. Bates interrupted.

“But she didn’t,” Mr. Bates said. “I did.”

Her stomach dropped. “What do you mean?”

“Months ago, when I went down to try and reason with her. Before we had the proof of her infidelity. She was complaining about rats in the cellar. She’s never liked going into the cellar, and I was trying to butter her up, so I said I’d go put down some poison.” 

Could Vera have been planning this—something like this—all along? “But you bought it?”

“She didn’t have any in the house, and I’d already said I’d put it down, so I went and bought it. Signed the poison book and everything. It was arsenic, and I only put down half of the packet. I’ve been thinking, that’s what she must’ve used.” 

Mr. Bates had found out at the inquest—one of his many trips to London—that the coroner had concluded that Vera died by arsenic poisoning. “Have you told the police?”

“No,” Mr. Bates said. “They’ve already spent more time on it than makes sense for a suicide.”

“Tell them,” Anna said. “If you don’t, and they find out, it’ll look bad.” Mr. Bates _would_ have a motive to kill Vera. The divorce was a sure thing, but it was likely that the judge would order a settlement on Vera. This way, he didn’t have to pay her anything, and he got the marital property as well. 

“Anna!” Mr. Carson said. “Are you waiting for the tea to carry itself upstairs?”

She squeezed Mr. Bates’s arm and dashed off to get the tea-tray from the kitchen. 

When she brought it back down, Thomas and Mr. Fitzroy were in the kitchen, unloading a rucksack full of groceries. 

“—don’t need powdered eggs,” Mrs. Patmore was saying. “We get all we need from the home farm.”

Mr. Fitzroy put the box back in the rucksack. “I’ll give them to Mrs. Entwistle,” he told Thomas. “She uses them.” 

“You’ve decided to do it, then?” she asked, setting the tray down on the worktable. 

“Samples,” Thomas explained. “We bought a bit, to make sure the stuff’s good, and to show the Americans we’re serious. If Mrs. Patmore—and Mrs. Entwistle—approve it, we go back for the rest.”

Mrs. Patmore tore open a packet of sugar and put a pinch on her tongue. “Daisy!” she yelled. “We’re making _tarte tatin_ for tonight’s pudding. Stir your stumps!”

“Oi!” Thomas said. “That stuff isn’t free, you know.”

Anna left them to it, and found Mr. Bates in the servants’ hall. There were too many people in there for a private discussion—their own tea would be starting before long—so the repaired to the boot room. Before Anna could raise the subject of arsenic, Thomas and Peter came in, too. They were apparently under the impression that Anna and Mr. Bates had come in here to hear about their black market adventure, and Mr. Bates was in no hurry to dissuade them. “Have you been converted to the cause, then, Mr. Fitzroy? I thought you were a skeptic.”

“Oh, I am skeptical,” he said. “But it does look rather encouraging so far.”

Once they had finished recounting their day—with emphasis on the number and variety of goods the American black marketeers had to offer—Anna said, “Since you’re here, perhaps you could weigh in on something.” She explained about the arsenic, concluding, “Don’t you think Mr. Bates should inform the police? Before they find out themselves?”

“Are you mad, woman?” Thomas asked. 

“It does seem like it would be asking for trouble,” Mr. Bates said, with a sideways glance at Thomas. He still found it surprising when they agreed about anything. 

“You’re asking for trouble if you stay silent,” Anna argued. 

“It does seem like it might be better to get out ahead of it,” Mr. Fitzroy put in. “I mean, if someone’s poisoned, the police check the poison books at the local shops.”

“They might not look back that far,” Thomas pointed out. 

“But if they do,” Anna said, “and you haven’t said anything….” She looked up at Mr. Bates. “You didn’t do anything wrong. They know she took the poison late that night. They can check with the hotel that you stayed in, and they’ll know—”

“I didn’t stay in a hotel,” Mr. Bates said.

“What?” Surely Thomas hadn’t been right with his silly seduction idea. 

“I was angry,” Mr. Bates said. “So I went to a pub and I had a drink. And I can’t have just one, so I had several more. The next thing I remember clearly is being on a milk train heading here. I don’t know where I went after closing time. For all I know, I _could_ have gone back to the house and murdered my wife.”

Anna’s heart pounded. “Don’t say that. It may be difficult to prove that you didn’t, but of course you didn’t. You’re not that kind of man.”

“You’ve never seen me drunk,” Mr. Bates said. “I don’t believe that I did. I think I’d remember that—I remember a few bits and pieces. There was a…sort of underground nightclub, that served after licensing hours, and then I was wandering around trying to find the train station.” He shrugged. “If I’d seen Vera, I’d probably have some idea. But I certainly couldn’t kiss the book and swear that I _didn’t_ kill her.” 

No. No. This was not happening. “The police will be able to trace your movements,” she said. “Won’t they?” She looked to Thomas and Mr. Fitzroy for support.

They exchanged a glance, and Thomas said dubiously, “They do in detective stories.”

“If they do,” Mr. Bates said, “and they start at the pub I remember going to, they’ll probably find someone who’ll tell them I said I wished my wife would drop over dead. Because I did say that. Several times. To anyone who would listen.”

#

“I feel a bit guilty now,” Peter said, as they walked toward the village. Peter had been invited—personally, by Mrs. Patmore—to stay to dinner, so they were going down so he could tell Mrs. Entwistle he wouldn’t be in, and to give her the powdered eggs. “Things are looking up for us, and now Anna and Mr. Bates….”

“He didn’t kill her,” Thomas pointed out. Bates liked to accuse him of being dramatic, but he had a bit a thespian streak himself. “It’s not the sort of thing you forget doing, no matter how drunk you are.”

“It doesn’t look good, though,” Peter said. “There must be a reason they didn’t rule it a suicide.” 

Thomas had wondered about that. Apparently inquests usually determined both a cause of death—arsenic, in this case—and a manner of death, such as accident, murder, or suicide. Anna had suggested that they’d avoided the verdict of suicide so that Vera could be buried in consecrated ground. 

“Something that made them suspicious,” Peter continued. “I know what Anna thinks, but…well, Mrs. Bates isn’t anybody important. Would they really leave the case open to spare the family, when no one was even asking them to?”

Put that way, it didn’t seem likely. “It’s funny how they keep dragging him down there to ask him questions,” Thomas agreed. “Maybe they already know about him buying the poison.”

“Maybe,” Peter said. “But I read somewhere that when a woman’s murdered, it’s nearly always the husband or lover. Since she had one of each….” 

“For Anna’s sake, let’s hope her lover is without an alibi for that night, too,” Thomas said. 

Mrs. Entwistle was glad to have the powdered eggs. “I was just wondering how to stretch this bit of cold ham,” she said. “I’ll make us a nice egg pie for our supper. We’ll have enough that your brother could stay too, if he likes.”

Peter broke the news to her that he wouldn’t be staying. “We took some supplies to the big house, too,” he explained, “so they’ve invited me to help eat them. But I’ll expect a full report on whether the eggs give complete satisfaction. If they do, there’s more where they came from.”

After securing Mrs. Entwistle’s promise to give her verdict, they turned back for the house. Thomas lit them a couple of cigarettes, wishing he could _really_ kiss Peter. Just having him back was lovely, of course, but it _had_ been a long war. He eyed the Etruscan Temple as they passed it. It might offer the requisite degree of privacy, but not—unfortunately—protection from the elements. “I wish it was summer,” he said with a sigh.

“Why?” Peter asked.

“Carson was very firm about our not doing anything illegal in the house,” Thomas explained. “He didn’t say anything about the grounds.” He looked back towards the village. “Do you suppose once we’re both at the Entwistles’….?” The couple had been glad enough to have Peter stay on after he was demobbed, paying the same rate the Army had paid for his billet. Since they didn’t expect their surviving son back for some time yet, they’d agreed to take Thomas on the same terms, once Wiggins had left. The last of the hospital personnel were staying on a few days longer than the convalescent home ones, so Thomas hoped they didn’t chuck him out of Downton the instant he was demobbed. 

“No,” Peter said. “Their bedroom is right next to ours, and we can hear Mr. Entwistle snoring all night. We can’t risk it.”

Damn. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep my hands off you,” Thomas said frankly. “We’ll have to go into York, or somewhere, and get a room.”

“We’ll be going down to London for my things,” Peter pointed out. “A London hotel would be a bit safer.”

True, but arranging that trip would require writing to Sir H.’s housekeeper and awaiting a reply; once Thomas was demobbed, they could go to York without answering to anybody. 

The garage came into view, glowing like a Chinese lantern. Thomas began to think. _Under this roof_ , Carson had said. Not _on this estate_ or _at Downton Abbey_. Not that such parsing would make any difference if they were actually _caught_ , but….

A figure emerged from the garage, then turned back and met another figure in a parting embrace. Thomas held out his arm to stop Peter going any closer. “Hold on,” he said. He shifted into the lee of a convenient tree—so handy that the wind was coming from the direction of the garage—and lit a couple of cigarettes. 

“I don’t think _this_ is the place for it,” Peter joked.

“No, but I’m having an idea.” The two figures separated. The second one resumed its walk toward the house, and in the moonlight, resolved into Lady Sybil, in a dinner dress and her nurse’s cloak. “Right,” he said. “Let’s give it a minute.”

By the time they had finished their cigarettes, Lady Sybil had disappeared inside the house, and the other figure had gone back to doing something under the bonnet of the car. “Come on,” Thomas said, starting for the garage. 

It was cozy enough, really, with a woodstove in one corner. Private enough, too—Branson’s cottage was just across the way, but it didn’t matter what _he_ saw. “Branson,” Thomas said. “You’re finished for the night after you take the Dowager back home, aren’t you?” The old lady was dining with the family that evening.

“Her and Mrs. Crawley,” Branson confirmed warily, wiping his hands on a rag. “Why?”

“Leave the garage unlocked after you’ve done it,” Thomas said. 

“Why?” Branson repeated, his tone much more suspicious.

“Because you want us to forget what we just saw,” Thomas said. 

“Thomas!” Peter said. Turning to Branson, he said, “Because we need to have a private conversation, and it’s too cold to have it outdoors.” He glanced sidelong at Thomas. “But also the other thing, if you’re tempted to get curious what we’re talking about.”

Branson sighed. “You’re not going to do anything to the cars, are you?”

“We’re not the Socialist saboteurs here,” Thomas pointed out. 

“You’ll lock it when you’re finished,” he barely hesitated, “talking?”

“Of course,” Peter said. “And put out the lamps, et cetera.” 

“Fine,” Branson said, with a put-upon sigh. His voice hardened. “But don’t you dare threaten her again.”

Thomas decided not to try to explain that it was _Branson_ he’d been threatening. “Understood.”

Dinner was agonizing—even with the _tarte tatin_ , of which Mrs. Patmore had permitted Daisy to make a second one for the servants’ table. “I won’t ask where you got the sugar for this, Mrs. Patmore,” Carson said, accepting a generous slice. 

“Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies,” Mrs. Patmore said airily. 

The tarte was delicious, and it was almost unnecessary for them to go into the kitchen afterwards for confirmation that the samples had met expectations. “If it’s all like that, I’ll be your best customer,” Mrs. Patmore said. 

“Hm,” Peter said, thoughtfully. 

But Thomas didn’t bother asking. Bedroom bells were ringing, which meant that the family had gone up, which meant that the Dowager and Mrs. Crawley had left, which meant—!

“Let’s go up to my office,” Thomas said. It still was, technically, for another day or two. “I think I’ve got some brandy left.”

They went, and Thomas did grab the brandy, but as soon as the coast was clear, they escaped out one of the French doors in the recreation room—or perhaps it was the library again already—carefully making sure the latch wouldn’t fall closed and lock them out. 

The garage stove had gone cold by the time they got there, but Thomas quickly started a new fire—living in the barn, before its renovation, had sharpened his skills in that regard—and they made a sort of pallet in front of it, using their greatcoats and the traveling rugs from the cars. Thomas sat with his legs stretched out in front of him, leaning back on his hands. Peter copied him at first, but quickly realized that this posture did not leave him with a hand free to—for instance—raise a glass of brandy. He leaned up against Thomas instead, which was better in all sorts of ways. 

Especially when he turned his head slightly and kissed Thomas, his mouth tasting of brandy and cigarettes and just a trace of the glaze from the _tarte tatin_. 

They kissed for a long time, before Peter eased Thomas down onto his back, and then they kissed like that for a while, rubbing lazily against one another. “Come on, then,” Thomas said, once he’d had enough of it. 

Enough for _now_. He’d never have enough of Peter.

“Prick-tease,” he added. 

Peter glanced at the hand he had planted on the floor beside Thomas’s head, holding himself up. “I think you had better, dearest,” he said. 

Oh. Right. For a half an instant, Thomas thought of Peter’s left hand. When he last seen it? Peter’s embarkation leave, of course, but he couldn’t remember, exactly, when it had touched him for the last time. He’d feared never seeing Peter again, but he hadn’t known, then, that he could lose _specific parts_ of him. 

But he had the rest of him back, and he wasn’t going to spoil this by thinking about how he’d never see Peter’s left hand again. He worked his own hand—the right one—between them, and got their trousers open. 

Neither of them lasted long, but that was all right, because they could lie there and enjoy the warm, soft lassitude of it. “I still think I’m going to wake up, sometimes,” Thomas said, stroking Peter’s hair. “That I’ll wake up, and you’ll still be dead.”

“I won’t, dearest,” Peter said. “Though I suppose if I was a dream, I’d say that.”

“I don’t know,” Thomas said. “I never dreamed you were alive, when you were dead. Or if I did, I don’t remember it. I’ve had the other one, though,” he confessed.

“Hm?”

“Since you’ve been back. I’ve had dreams—nightmares—where I wake up and realize that I’d dreamed you being alive.” 

Peter shifted his weight slightly to look up at Thomas. “I’m sorry, dearest.” 

“It’ll be nice when we’re at the Entwistles’ together,” he added. “I’ll be able to just look over and see you.” It was always confusing, waking up from a dream like that, and having to figure out which part was real. 

Dropping his head back onto Thomas’s shoulder, Peter said, “I can’t tell you how furious I am—furious and sad—when I think of you….I really never imagined that they hadn’t told you I was alive.”

“I know,” Thomas said. “I don’t blame you—of course I don’t. It was ghastly, though. I wanted….”

“Thought what?” Peter asked.

“I forget,” Thomas said, because there was no better way to spoil things than to say that he’d wanted to die, too. “You know, once we’ve our own place—rooms above the shop, I think—we’ll be able to do this whenever we like?”

“I _do_ know,” Peter said. “It’ll be like we’re married.”

It would, wouldn’t it? Thomas thought, queerly, of Daisy’s wedding. He realized now how bitterly envious he’d been, that she got to marry a corpse. “An honorable estate,” he quoted, “instituted by God, in the time of man’s innocence.”

“We are,” Peter said drowsily. “Innocent.”

Thomas dozed off. When he woke again, the room was much colder, and Peter was chucking more wood into the stove. “Time is it?” he asked sleepily.

“Late,” Peter said, coming back and lying beside him. “Or early,” he added, tugging one of the rugs over them. “This was one of your better ideas.”

“Yeah.” 

They lay quietly, kissing occasionally, as the garage warmed up again, and the sky outside the windows lightened. 

They made it back to the house a bit before the kitchen staff were up, with time to neaten themselves up a bit. Thomas gave Peter a different tie, which would suggest he’d been back to his billet to change it, and Peter thought of the additional flourish of turning up at the kitchen door with it draped around his neck, looking for Thomas to do it up for him. 

“You’re here early,” Daisy said, watching curiously as Thomas did so.

“Setting a good example for the men,” Peter said. “We’ve a lot to do today.” 

He wasn’t wrong, though most of it—packing the hospital crockery into crates, disassembling the beds—required two hands. Peter could help with the supervision, though, which left Thomas free to go about with a clipboard, checking things off as they were packed away. 

Not that there was a tremendous need for supervision. The men knew that, once they were finished here, their next stop was the demob center, and even those who would just as soon have stayed on for a while longer weren’t inclined to draw things out. They’d allowed three days for the packing up, but by midmorning of the third day, they were sitting around waiting for the Transport Corps vans to come and collect it all. 

Meanwhile, the housemaids and hall-boys were bustling about, setting the rooms back to normal. Thomas wondered if Carson would demand the assistance of the men for putting the furniture back, but he didn’t, so they just hung about in the orderlies’ room—which would, any moment now, be the morning room again—drinking tea and smoking cigarettes. 

The vans arrived in the middle of a desultory sort of argument over whether it was a good idea or not to keep your Army greatcoat when you demobbed. They charged you a pound for it, but it was a good coat, miles better than anything you could buy at that price, especially with the postwar shortages. 

“But who wants to be reminded of it all?” someone asked, as they straggled out to start loading the vans.

Thomas thought of sitting on the steps of the barracks, at the CCS, with Rawlins and Rouse, warm in their Army greatcoats. “Think I’ll hang on to mine,” he said, and got to work. 

The next morning, Thomas dug his second-best prewar suit out of the trunk in his bedroom, stowed his kit, and went to the demob center. Peter went along, since they were going to Leeds afterwards, to meet up with Hank and Bill. 

There was a lot of waiting around—though with no demob ship arriving that day, the queue barely stretched out the front door of the place, so at least you were waiting around _indoors_ —but the actual process, if you weren’t presumed dead, wasn’t very complicated. Thomas handed over his kit, and waited, presented the documents Major Clarkson had given him, and waited some more, nodded and said “Yes, sir,” while the figures on his demobilization account were explained to him—he was getting a bit more than Peter had, though he couldn’t have explained why—and signed his name until he thought his hand was going to cramp, and then, just like that, he was out of the Army. 

He paid his pound and took his greatcoat with him, but he still felt cold, as he walked to the pub where Peter was waiting for him. “All right?” Peter asked. 

“Of course.” But later, when they were on the train to Leeds, he said, “You know, I…sort of liked being in the Army.” 

Peter eyed him. “I know you did.”

“I didn’t,” Thomas said, eyeing him back. “Know, I mean.”

“I have magic powers,” Peter said seriously. 

They both laughed a lot harder than that deserved, and by the time they reached the second pub of the day, where they were to meet Hank and Bill, Thomas felt better. 

The only thing left to negotiate was delivery. The agreed-upon price included delivery to Thomas and Peter’s freshly-rented shed in Downton village, but the Yanks wanted to be paid before they started loading the stuff into their van. Off the top of his head, Thomas could think of half a dozen ways that they could manage to give Thomas and Peter the slip, between taking the money and making delivery. 

“The money’s in the Post Office,” Thomas said. “In the village. We couldn’t give it to you now if we wanted to.” He assumed the Americans wouldn’t know that a Post Office account could be drawn from a different Post Office. 

“Then how do we know you’re good for it?”

“We brought our account books.” Thomas took his out and slapped it on the table in front of them. 

After extensive studying of the account books, Bill reluctantly concluded that it did seem as though they had the money. 

“How’s this,” Thomas said. “We load up the merchandise and go to the village, together. The stuff stays in the van until we—” he indicated Peter and himself, “—draw out the money. We show it to you, and give you half. We unload the stuff into our shed, and then give you the rest.”

Peter chipped in, “If you like, we’ll give you a crown up front, for the petrol. That way, if we’ve decided to make you drive a van halfway across the county for mysterious reasons of our own, you won’t be out anything.” 

They chewed that over for a bit. “We unload half,” Bill said. “Then you give us the other half of the money before we unload the rest.” 

“Fine,” Thomas agreed.

“And we want a pound up front,” Bill added. “For the gas.”

Thomas really had no idea how much petrol it took to drive from Leeds to Downton, but it had to be quite a bit less than a pound’s worth. “Two crowns,” he suggested.

“A pound is all right,” Peter said. “Petrol’s rationed,” he added to Thomas. 

They shook hands, and departed for the shed. Thomas had brought along the inventory of goods they’d gotten from Hank at the previous meeting, and checked things off as they were loaded. 

“Don’t forget the stuff you took up-front,” Hank said, when he saw what Thomas was doing.

“I won’t.”

“Thought you guys were going to help load,” Bill pointed out. 

“I am helping,” Thomas said. “I’m Sergeanting.” He pointed at the stripes on his greatcoat sleeve. 

“Gee,” Hank said to Bill. “I guess noncoms are the same all over, huh?”

“I’ll help,” Peter said brightly. “I was only a Corporal.”

He could only manage to carry the smaller items, and only one at a time, but Thomas supposed it went show willing. By the time they were finished, Thomas had checked off nearly everything on his inventory. They were short a handful of assorted items—a pound of rice, a couple of pounds of flour, one packet of powdered eggs, and so on. Nothing serious. 

Bill made an expression of exaggerated dismay. “You know what,” he said. “I gave a few things to this girl I know. I didn’t tell Hank.” 

“You blockhead!” Hank said. “What’re these guys going to think now? That we’re runnin’ some kind of scam?” He turned back to them. “Tell you what. We’ll knock a pound off the price, okay?”

Thomas and Peter agreed to that. “One more thing,” Peter said, reaching into his as Hank went to close the doors on the van. 

“What?” Bill asked. His tone was casual, but Thomas could see him shifting his weight onto his back foot, getting ready to either take a swing or make a run for it. 

Peter took out his penknife. “I just want to check something.” 

Bill relaxed—a strange reaction to seeing a bloke pull a knife, no matter how small it was—but his tone sharpened. “Hey, that stuff’s still ours,” he said. “You haven’t paid us for it yet.”

“We paid you a pound,” Peter pointed out, fumbling to get the knife open one-handed. “If you end up driving us anywhere, we’ll give you another one.” 

Thomas wasn’t entirely sure what he was on about—though he was beginning to form an idea or two—but he took the knife, opened it, and handed it back. “Ta,” Peter said. He turned back to the van and stabbed a bag of sugar. The bag split, and white crystals poured out. Peter took a pinch, as Mrs. Patmore had, and put it on his tongue. He scoffed, stuck the knife in his pocket, and picked up the opened bag, holding it out in Thomas’s direction. 

Thomas took a pinch. It was gritty, and not at all sweet. “Is that…sand?” he asked, the vision of their own shop, and their cozy rooms above it, going up in flames. 

“You’ve got to admire their commitment to artistic verisimilitude,” Peter said.

“ _Shit_ ,” Hank said. His accent, while still American, was a rougher one than he’d been using before. Thomas wondered, idly, what his real name was. 

Peter lobbed the bag of sand in Bill’s general direction. Bill caught it, but not without spilling sand all over himself. 

This was a disaster, really, but Thomas wouldn’t think about that now; right now, he’d enjoy showing up these two pricks who thought they could pull the wool over his and Peter’s eyes. From the right angle, this was a funny story. 

By now, Peter had turned back to the van and was sorting through the bags marked “sugar.” “Here,” he said, handing Thomas one. 

“What do you want me to do with this?” Thomas asked. “Pound it?” 

“That one’s real,” Peter said. “At least, I think so.” He turned to Hank. “The little red spot, on the bottom, those are the ones you have in case people ask to inspect the goods?”

“I…” Hank said. “Hey, I don’t know what’s going on here. The guys we bought this stuff from musta pulled a fast one on us.” 

“Did they?” Thomas said, with savage glee. “ _Golly_. Well, we’d better see how badly they fucked you over, shouldn’t we?” He got out his own penknife and went at a bag of tapioca, which proved to be gravel, and then a bag of plaster labeled as flour, some ashes masquerading as black pepper, and so on. He went on long after the point was made, because it was satisfying to stab things, and there was no way at all that a bloke could get in any sort of trouble for tearing apart some bags of rubbish being peddled by a couple of black-market swindlers. 

He didn’t stop until he was out of breath and half-covered in chalk dust and plaster and whatever else. He was a little surprised Hank and Bill hadn’t stopped him—the stuff wasn’t _worth_ anything, but they’d have to do the packages up again before they could try this scam on anyone else—but when he looked around, they were nowhere to be seen.

“They scarpered a while ago,” Peter said, handing him a lit cigarette. “Feel better?”

“Not particularly,” Thomas said, taking it. “Think I got sand in me eyes.” That had to be why they were stinging.

“Yeah,” Peter said. “You probably did.” Handing Thomas his cigarette, he stabbed open a condensed milk tin and used the water inside to dampen his handkerchief, which he then used to wipe off Thomas’s face.

“Here,” Thomas said, sticking his own cigarette in his mouth and holding Peter’s out to him. “Trade you.” He took the handkerchief and finished cleaning his own face. “How’d you figure it out?”

“I wasn’t _really_ sure until I saw it for myself,” Peter admitted. “But they were awfully eager to get their hands on the money. They couldn’t have thought we’d grab the stuff and run, not when it was their van it was going in.” He added, “And, you know, both of them have got two arms.”

“I could’ve taken them both,” Thomas said. 

“I know you could,” Peter said agreeably. “But they didn’t.” He resumed his explanation. “So I thought there had to be something they didn’t want us to notice, or at least wanted to have as much of the money as they could before we noticed. I remembered seeing the marks on the ‘samples’ they gave us—you remember how I checked everything over, looking at the seams and so on?”

“Yeah,” Thomas said. 

“I thought it was just part of the packaging, but then when I started loading the things, I saw that most of the packets didn’t have it. I remembered Mrs. Patmore saying something about _if_ all the stuff was as good as what we gave her, and then I thought, if some of the stuff would stand up to inspection and some wouldn’t, they’d need a way to tell which was which.” 

“You _do_ have magic powers,” Thomas said admiringly. “About all I noticed was that when you got out your knife, Bill was glad to see it wasn’t a warrant card.” Not that it did much good, him spotting that when the whole thing was about to unravel anyway, but he didn’t want Peter to think he was _completely_ useless. “And I reckon the bit about the count coming up short was to make me think how clever I was catching them out.” 

“Likely enough,” Peter agreed. “They were good, but we’re better.” He tossed away his cigarette and shook the last of the gravel out of what was supposed to have been a sack of rice. Sticking the marked bag of sugar in it, he said, “We might as well check if there’s anything else here worth taking home. They took our pound with them, so I think we can safely say we’ve bought the lot.” 

He had a point. But before they got too far into it, Thomas carefully sliced open the marked bag of sugar and tasted it. “Seems real to me,” he said. “Here, you try.” 

Peter agreed, so Thomas wrapped the now-open bag up in another empty sack, and they got to work sorting through what was left in the van. There was a bit more of the real stuff than Thomas would have guessed—several bags of sugar, some packets of powdered eggs, a couple of tins of condensed milk, a bit of rice and flour. He wondered whether, when they got to the village, Bill and Hank would have found some way to hang on to the genuine goods. Most of it was loaded near the front of the van, which suggested a few possibilities, but he supposed it didn’t really matter. 

Rummaging around in the van, they found a rucksack like the one they’d taken their “samples” away in, which allowed Peter to carry his share of the load. It was also a good bit more discreet than the sack Thomas was carrying over his shoulder like Father Christmas. 

If anyone asked, he thought, he’d say they’d won the stuff gambling with some Yanks. It would be true. 

“Not a bad value for a pound, really,” Peter said, as they started toward the railway station.

Thomas nodded, totting up figures in his head. “We should clear enough to cover the shed.” They’d paid three months’ rent on it in advance. 

Perhaps they could live in it. 

Luckily, they got back to Downton without being questioned about Thomas’s suspicious sack of rationed goods. They took the stuff into the kitchen, where Mrs. Patmore fell upon it like a child on a Christmas stocking. 

A disappointing Christmas stocking. “Where’s the cinnamon?” she demanded. “The ginger? The treacle?”

“That’s all there is,” Thomas said curtly. He wouldn’t have said anything more about it, but Peter launched into the story of how he and Thomas had outwitted the two confidence tricksters. It _was_ a good story—everyone was listening raptly—but Thomas was in no mood to hear it. He slipped outside and sat on the back step, smoking. 

Some time later, Peter came out and sat on the step beside him. “We’ll be all right,” he said. 

“I know,” Thomas lied. 

“It would’ve been nice, if it had worked,” Peter said. 

“I don’t know why I ever thought it would,” he answered. “I don’t know how much more obvious it could’ve been, that it was a scam. I’d’ve fallen for it if you weren’t there.”

“But I was there,” Peter pointed out. “We’re a good team, aren’t we?”

“Yeah,” Thomas agreed, breathing in sharply through his nose. 

“That’s the lesson here. Not that it was stupid to ever have wanted it to work.”

Thomas looked over at him, startled.

“Magic powers,” Peter reminded him. “I know you,” he continued, more seriously. “You realize I’ve known you for nearly half your life, now?”

Thomas hadn’t thought of that. “Guess you have.”

“I’m going to know you for the rest of it, too,” Peter continued. “Look. We tried something. It didn’t work out, but we’re all right. We only lost a bit of money, and we still have each other.” He took Thomas’s cigarette out of his hand and took a drag from it. “With the knife,” he said. “When you opened it for me.”

“Yeah?”

“You hadn’t quite worked out what I was going to do with it, had you?”

They’d already been over this. Peter had spotted the trick; he hadn’t. “No,” he said grudgingly. 

“Then why’d you open it for me?”

“Because….” How in hell was he supposed to answer that question? He’d opened the knife because Peter was trying to open it. “Because whatever you wanted to do with it, I wanted you to do.”

“Yeah,” Peter said. “That. That’s what I’m going to remember about today.” 

It was a nice thought, but…. Thomas shook his head. “I just wanted us to have something,” he said, his voice thick. 

“We do,” Peter said. “I have you, and you have me. We’ll figure the rest out.”

Wrapping his greatcoat around himself, and pressing his shoulder against Peter’s, Thomas let that be—for this moment—enough. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Information about the demobilization process and payouts drawn from the Imperial War Museums.   
>  See images of demob papers here: https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/demobilisation-papers . 
> 
> The soldier whose papers are shown at the link got almost sixty pounds on demobilization, which according to a couple of online currency converters, works out to about $4,500 in today's dollars, or 3,400 in today's pounds. So, enough to live on for a while if you were careful with it, and a bigger lump sum than Thomas and Peter would have likely had before--especially since, as servants, part of their compensation was in room-and-board rather than cash--but not so much that they could afford to not worry about what they were going to do when it ran out.


	33. Chapter 26: January-March, 1919

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nurse Crawley hatches a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have once again updated the chapter count. There is one more full-length chapter after this one, and then a brief epilogue.

“Goodness me,” Carson said as he came in to breakfast, in that awful, falsely-genial voice that made Thomas want to smack him. “Are you still here, Thomas?”

Carson, Thomas thought bitterly, had probably be counting the days until he didn’t have to call him _Sergeant Barrow_ anymore. It was far too early, and Thomas was in no mood, to deal with Carson being sarcastic, but he didn’t exactly have a choice in the matter. “The lodgings I’m taking in the village aren’t available for a few more days,” he said coolly. Not that it made much sense to _stay_ in the village, now that they weren’t going to be running a grocery business. “If it’s a problem, I’ll get a room at the pub.”

“I don’t see how it would be a problem,” Mrs. Hughes put in, with a quelling sort of look at Carson. 

“Oh, no,” Carson said. “I simply thought that _Thomas_ would be eager to be on his way. Now that his work here is finished.” 

Thomas wished he could tell him to get knotted, but it wouldn’t help him and Peter at all, to have to start paying for lodgings earlier than necessary. “Why would I?” he said flatly. “When I have so many happy memories of this place?”

He must not’ve sounded quite sarcastic enough, because Anna gave him another arm-squeeze. 

Thomas had very little appetite for his toast and porridge—the former served without butter, thanks to the rationing, and the latter even gluier than usual—and would have liked to make a quick exit, but he and Peter had agreed—for some reason; habit, maybe—to meet here after breakfast. If he went down to the village instead, they might miss each other. So he sat and poked at his food, and then, when the rest of them left to start on the days tasks, found yesterday’s newspapers, lit a cigarette, and began poring over the Situations Vacant.

He’d gotten through two of the Yorkshire papers, without finding anything remotely promising, by the time Peter came. Thomas would have suggested they go somewhere else—anywhere else—but Daisy turned up and offered Peter a cup of tea. 

“I’d love one,” Peter said. “Bit of a chilly walk.”

So now they were stuck here until Peter finished his tea. 

When Daisy brought it, Mrs. Patmore came trailing after her, carrying one of the tins they’d salvaged from the ill-fated groceries. “Have you any idea what I’m to do with this?” she asked, peering at the label through her spectacles. “Karo golden syrup, it says.”

“How would I know?” Thomas asked irritably.

“It’s a bit like thin treacle,” Peter explained. “We got it in parcels sometimes. I’ve no idea what you’re _meant_ to do with it, but we ate it with bread.” 

“Hm,” Mrs. Patmore said, and waddled off to the kitchen. 

“She still hasn’t paid us for that stuff,” Thomas observed darkly. 

“I’m sure she’s good for it,” Peter said, pulling one of the newspapers toward himself.

Bates came back down a little while later, and sat on Peter’s other side. “I’ve spoken to his lordship,” he announced.

 _So what?_ “I didn’t think you’d dressed him in complete silence.”

Bates sighed. “I mentioned,” he said, with exaggerated calmness, “that your plans had fallen through, and he said that he has no objection to your staying a week or two while you decide what to do next. And he’ll make sure that Mr. Carson understands there’s no hurry for you to leave.”

What, was he supposed to be _grateful_ now? “Fantastic.”

“Thank you,” Peter said. “It was kind of you to think of us.”

“You’re welcome,” Bates said, reaching for one of the newspapers. “Did you know, for a while, during the war, he was almost bearable to be around? I’m not sure what happened.” 

“The war ended,” Thomas said. 

Peter gave them both a quelling look. He must’ve learned it from Anna. 

They worked their way through the rest of the papers, and Peter finished his tea. Thomas was about to raise the subject of going somewhere else—O’Brien had come back down, and hostilities were sure to break out before long—when Peter asked, “Where’s Anna, anyway?”

“Upstairs,” Bates said. 

Thomas added, “The housemaids and hall-boys are working on getting the rooms back to normal.”

Peter raised an eyebrow. 

“What?”

“Don’t you think we ought to see if there’s anything we can do to help?” Peter asked. 

Oh, _Peter_. Thomas had to tell him; Thomas could just about handle Carson spitting in _his_ face when he’d offered to help with Mr. Matthew, but not Peter’s. “Carson doesn’t want our help.”

“Then we’ll ask Mrs. Hughes,” Peter said, getting up. 

Thomas couldn’t make him understand with O’Brien listening to every word—or even _Bates_ , for that matter—so he followed. On the stairs, he stopped Peter with a hand on his arm. “Look. If I try to _help_ around here, all they do is make snide comments about how I must be trying to weasel my way back into a job.”

“So?”

“So we don’t need them thinking we’re… _pathetic_.” Especially not Peter. 

Peter glanced up and down the stairwell, making sure they were alone. “I’ll grant you that Carson’s a prick, and O’Brien’s a viper,” he said. “But the rest of them? Don’t actually want you to leave.”

That couldn’t be true. But of course Peter would think it. “Fat lot of good that does us.”

“It doesn’t,” Peter conceded. “We can’t stay here. But picking fights with them isn’t going to make leaving any easier.”

Thomas looked away. 

“Come on,” Peter said, and continued up the stairs.

They found Mrs. Hughes and everyone in the library, putting furniture and decorative objects back in their proper places. 

“Well, let me see,” she said, when Peter asked if there was anything they could do to help. “We still need to bring the sofas down—er, perhaps not,” she realized, looking at Peter’s left shoulder. “Perhaps you could remind the hall-boys of where the chairs are supposed to be?” she asked Thomas. “And Mr. Fitzroy, ah….”

“I’ll help with the furniture, as well,” Peter said brightly.

Thomas wasn’t sure how _that_ would work out, but it turned out that, with two and a half good arms between them, they could just about manage to move an armchair. As usual, having a job in front of him made Thomas feel a bit better—or at least gave him something to think about other than his problems, which was nearly the same thing. 

They moved on from armchairs to plant-stands and other smaller items of furniture, and then to helping with the bric-a-brac, which had been packed in crates with straw, and so had to be dusted before it was put back out. 

Most of the items could be carried one-handed, so Thomas wiped them, and gave them to Peter to put back. “Almost like being junior footmen again, isn’t it?” Peter asked at one point. 

“Almost,” Thomas agreed, with a fond smile. 

But they _weren’t_ junior footmen, and when the rest of the group—finished with the library—moved on to give the Music Room a thorough scrubbing in preparation for moving _its_ furniture and ornaments back in, Thomas proclaimed it beneath their dignity to participate, and Peter didn’t argue. 

Thomas didn’t particularly want to go back down to the servants’ hall, either, so they lingered in the library for a bit, on the excuse that they were checking for any stray belongings the patients might have left behind. They’d found a few pipes and handkerchiefs and so on when putting the ornaments back, so it wasn’t an _entirely_ invented chore. 

Still, they both started, a little guiltily, when Lady Sybil drifted into the room, trailing her hand idly along a tabletop. “It’s strange, isn’t it, seeing the rooms back the way they used to be?” 

“Yes, my lady,” Thomas agreed blandly. 

She smiled sadly, and Thomas wished he’d called her Nurse Crawley. “I feel as though I ought to be helping,” she said. “But that’s finished now.” 

It was. Thomas didn’t want to call her _my lady_ again, and so just nodded. 

“I feel so…flat,” she went on. “Like Champagne the day after a party. You know what I mean, don’t you—Sergeant Barrow?”

He did, and he knew what she meant by calling him Sergeant Barrow, too. She wanted to pretend that nothing had changed, that they could still talk as friends. Well. Why not? “I do,” he said. “Nurse Crawley.”

“Of course I can’t be sorry that the war’s over,” she continued. “Or glad that it happened. But…I know now what it is to work, to have a purpose. And to fit in with…people who don’t have the same kind of life as I’ve had. My old life seems so much smaller than it did.”

Thomas nodded. “Corporal Rawlins was saying that, right before he left. How we’d not have ever been friends, without the war. It was terrible, but…there were a few good parts. It’s a shame we can’t keep them.”

“Yes,” Nurse Crawley—Lady Sybil-said. She squared her shoulders. “I fancy a walk,” she said. “Join me?”

That meant she wanted to cadge a smoke. He glanced at Peter, who nodded. “We’ll get our coats.”

They got their coats from downstairs, and left through the kitchen door, taking the path around the side of the house to meet Nurse Crawley at the front door. They could pretend all they liked that nothing had changed; that didn’t make it true. 

They walked toward the Etruscan Temple, talking idly of the people they had known, together—patients and fellow staff. When they reached the folly, Thomas passed around cigarettes. “You’re going to have to either give ‘em up or start buying your own, now,” he pointed out as he lit Nurse Crawley’s.

She didn’t answer at first, and Thomas started to wonder if he’d overstepped. “Perhaps,” she finally said. “But you see, I’ve made a decision.”

Thomas had a pretty clear idea of what that _decision_ was. Reflexively, he almost pointed out that it was better if he didn’t know—but why not? He didn’t answer to Lord Grantham anymore, or Sister Crawley. 

She went on, “I’ve had an idea. I had it a while ago, in fact, but I couldn’t—I had to make my decision before…I’m getting this terribly muddled.”

“Start over,” Peter suggested. It was a thing he’d said to Thomas, sometimes, when they were younger, and he was struggling to say something. 

“Perhaps I’d better,” Nurse Crawley said. “Anna told me about…how your plans to go into business have fallen through.”

What that had to do with Lady Sybil running away with the chauffeur, Thomas had no idea, and he wished she hadn’t brought it up. “They have,” he said, as politely as he could manage. 

Not politely enough, apparently, because Peter felt the need to explain, “It’s a bit of a sore subject.”

“Of course,” she said. “It must be very disappointing. But you see, I had an idea, for something you could do.”

If she was going to suggest he valet a crippled gentleman, Thomas was going to scream. 

She took a deep breath. “Branson is going back to Ireland. Soon, I mean. He was waiting until the end of the war because—” She blushed. “Well, that bit isn’t important. What is important, is that Papa will need a chauffeur.”

At least, Thomas thought gloomily, it was a _new_ useless suggestion. 

“The chauffeur isn’t under Carson’s supervision,” she continued. “I asked about that, particularly. And the gear-shift and hand-brake are on the right—all you really need to do with your left hand is steady the wheel when you’re braking or changing gears. You could manage that even if your shoulder was a lot worse than it is.”

“It’s very kind of you to think of it,” Thomas began. 

Peter jumped in. “Could you excuse us for just one moment, Nurse Crawley?” he asked. 

“Of course.”

Jamming his cigarette into his mouth, Peter dragged Thomas off to the other side of the folly. “I know,” he said. “A chauffeur is _outdoor_ staff, and the uniform is hideous. But think for a moment. _Chauffeurs get cottages_.”

For a fraction of a moment, Thomas was back under the tree, between the fields, in the summer before the war. _A cottage, with somebody nice_ , Peter had said, because he hadn’t quite dared say, _with me_. “Peter,” Thomas said, hating every moment of what he had to say next. 

“I’ll have to keep house, instead,” Peter continued, “but you can’t have everything you want in life.”

“Peter,” Thomas repeated. Best to get it over with, before Peter could get his hopes up any further than he already had. “ _I don’t know how to drive_.”

The sight of Peter’s face falling was every bit as terrible as Thomas had expected. “Oh,” he said. “Damn.” 

“Yeah.” 

They looked at their shoes for a moment. “It _was_ very kind of her to think of it,” Peter said bravely. 

“Yeah,” Thomas agreed. 

“I suppose I assumed she knew you’d picked it up somewhere,” Peter added. 

They couldn’t leave Nurse Crawley—let alone Lady Sybil—waiting forever, so they trooped back over. “It was so good of you to think of us,” Peter said. “But you see, Thomas doesn’t drive.” 

“Oh,” she said, crestfallen. “But—I thought you drove ambulances in France.”

It was a common misconception, though he thought her nursing training would have disabused her of it. “The Transport Corps does the driving, I’m afraid.” 

“I see,” she said, and took a slow, thoughtful drag from her cigarette. “Branson can teach you.”

Oh, bloody hell. The _last thing in the world_ that he wanted to do was find some way of politely getting across to her that her idea—an idea Peter liked—wasn’t going to work. 

Noticing his hesitation, she went on, “He taught Edith. And I’m sure you’ll learn much more quickly than she did. You learned all sorts of new things in the Medical Corps, didn’t you?”

“Of course you did,” Peter added, looking hopeful again. 

“I’m sure he’d be _able_ to teach me,” Thomas said. _But why in God’s name_ would _he_? “But I’m sure you see that teaching Lady Edith was part of his job. Training his replacement isn’t.” 

“He won’t mind,” she said. “He’s ready to leave, to play his part in Ireland’s struggles.”

That wasn’t _quite_ the point, but before Thomas could figure out how to say it, Peter did. “It would mean a delay,” he pointed out. “I’m sure Thomas will learn quickly, but if he’s that eager to leave….”

“He’s been waiting this long,” Nurse Crawley said, blushing again. “He’ll do it if I ask him to.” 

Of that, Thomas had little doubt, but he didn’t know why _she’d_ ask him to, either. Unless he’d misunderstood about her decision, and she wanted a friend in the garage after Branson had gone, to drive her places his lordship and her ladyship didn’t know she was going. 

And if he _hadn’t_ misunderstood, after Branson left, she wasn’t exactly going to be in a position to influence his lordship’s choice of a replacement. 

He wished he could pull Peter aside again to point out these problems, but it didn’t seem a good idea to keep ditching her to talk behind her back, when she was _trying_ to do them a favor. Especially if there was a chance, however slim, that it might actually _work_. “Have you…mentioned this to his lordship yet?”

“Not _this_ , exactly,” she admitted. “But I said we ought to try to find something for you, and he agreed.” 

Right; that was probably what had prompted him to tell Bates to tell Thomas that he could’ve had his footman job back if Carson didn’t hate him. “He may have his own ideas of what he’s looking for in a chauffeur.” Such as someone who _already knew how to drive_. 

“I can persuade him,” Nurse Crawley said. “He found a place for _his_ war chum, even though Mama and Carson didn’t think it was a good idea. I don’t see how he can refuse to do the same for mine.”

It wasn’t even remotely the same, but Thomas couldn’t think of a way to explain why it wasn’t. 

“I think it’s worth trying,” Peter said. “You could have a driving lesson or two, if Branson’s willing, and at least see if you’ve got a knack for it, before you decide.”

Thomas hesitated, and Nurse Crawley, apparently, decided that silence was as good as consent. “We’ll talk to Branson together,” she said. “He’s taking Mama to a luncheon in York, but he’ll be back by mid-afternoon.”

From this, Thomas guessed that she hadn’t discussed this plan with _Branson_ yet, either. After a brief consideration of whether Branson would find it easier to refuse with, or without, an audience, he said, “All right.”

The rest of the morning, Peter enthused about Nurse Crawley’s plan, and how certain he was that Thomas would make a good chauffeur. “You’re good at sport,” he pointed out. “I’m sure that’ll help. Hand-eye coordination and all that. And mechanical things.”

Thomas wasn’t sure how being good at fixing clocks related to driving, but didn’t argue. 

Peter did, at least, have to give the subject a rest at lunch—Nurse Crawley had warned them that no one else knew yet that Branson was leaving—and then they went back upstairs and helped with the furniture-moving again, until it was time to meet Branson.

Nurse Crawley was lingering in a very obvious way on the path that led to the garage. Honestly, Thomas wasn’t sure how the whole _house_ didn’t know about her clandestine romance.

Though he supposed he wasn’t in a position to cast stones on _that_ score. 

If Thomas had any doubts about precisely what decision Nurse Crawley had made, relating to Branson’s departure, they were dispelled by the way his face lit up when she entered the garage. If she’d handed him the mitten, he wouldn’t be looking at her like _that_. 

After the two had shared a meaningful handclasp—during which Peter and Thomas averted their eyes—Nurse Crawley got down to brass tacks. As she explained her plan, Branson looked—well, he looked like Thomas had felt, when he’d realized he had to tell Peter that the plan wouldn’t work. 

“I don’t mind teaching Barrow to drive,” he said, when she’d finished. “But there’s a lot more to being a chauffeur than driving the car.” He looked over at Thomas. “Do you know anything about motors?”

Damn it. “Not a lot,” he admitted. 

“The hard part of the job is maintaining the cars,” he said. “Anybody can drive. I don’t suppose you know how to adjust a carburetor? Fix a tire? Change the crank-case oil?”

Now Thomas was starting to feel a bit insulted. “Is it anything like giving somebody a blood transfusion?” he asked. “Cause I know how to do that.”

“He can fix clocks, too,” Peter said helpfully. “Won’t that help?”

“A motorcar is not very much like a clock, no,” said Branson. He looked regretfully at Nurse Crawley. “I’m sorry, but… I wish you’d mentioned this to me first.” 

Nurse Crawley was undeterred. “But you could teach him all of those things, couldn’t you? I mean, you weren’t born knowing them.”

Branson shot Thomas a look that said, _Please, explain to her why I can’t just teach you everything you need to know to do a job you’re completely unqualified for._

Thomas shot one back that said, _She’s your girlfriend;_ you _tell her._

Peter said, “I’m not sure we can impose that much on Branson’s time.”

“Yes,” Branson said, gratefully. “I do have my own work to do, until we—until I give notice. And there’s a big difference between knowing how to do something and knowing how to teach somebody else to do it. If we had, say, a year or two, I could show him things as I went along—that’s how my uncle taught me—but….”

“But Ireland needs you,” Thomas said, to stop anyone from having to point out the obvious fact that they didn’t want to wait that long to run away together. 

Nurse Crawley sighed. “I suppose I should have spoken to you first,” she admitted. “I didn’t realize how complicated it all was. I learned to be a nurse in just a few weeks.”

Peter made a sort of _aha_ noise. 

“What?” Thomas asked. He hoped the next ridiculous idea wasn’t going to come from _Peter_. 

“Are there training courses?” he asked. “For chauffeurs?” They all looked back and forth at each other for a moment, and he continued, “Because I’m sure it’s much quicker to learn from an experienced teacher, who doesn’t have to fit the lessons in alongside his other duties. And Major Clarkson _did_ say he’d help you get a re-training grant.”

That wasn’t exactly what he’d said; all he’d said was that they existed. 

“There are,” Branson said slowly. “I’m not sure how good they are, but I’ve seen adverts in the motoring magazines.”

“Can we see?” Nurse Crawley asked. 

From an untidy desk in the corner of the garage, Branson retrieved a few magazines. Paging through them, they found several advertisements for chauffeur’s courses—some more promising than others. The _correspondence_ course, for example, did not seem like it couldn’t possibly be worth the paper it was printed on. 

But as he leafed through the magazines, Thomas found himself gaining enthusiasm for the prospect. He kept finding himself distracted from the search for training-course adverts by diagrams of things like drive-trains and gearboxes. 

“There must be a way we can find out which ones are any good,” Peter said. To Branson, he asked, “Are there other chauffeurs you could write to, who might know?”

“There are some men I could ask,” he agreed. 

“Well, then!” Nurse Crawley said, looking pleased. “While we’re finding out which course is worthwhile, and arranging for Sergeant Barrow to go on it, you can start teaching him to drive, and show him some of the basic things,” she told Branson. “I know from my nursing course that it’s much better if you go in knowing something more than nothing.”

“I suppose,” Branson said. “This is all going to take a bit of time to arrange, though.” 

Thomas watched Nurse Crawley absorb the implications of this. Finally, she said, “That’s all right. We don’t…I mean, there isn’t such a very great hurry.”

Peter said delicately, “Perhaps we ought to step outside for a smoke.” 

They did so. Thomas was reminded of how they’d stepped outside of the shed in Leeds, to allow Bill and Hank to discuss whether they’d agree to letting them buy a few samples of their goods. As he’d done then, Thomas lit two cigarettes and handed one to Peter. “Motorcars might be a bit more interesting than I thought,” he said, thinking of the magazine diagrams. The mechanism by which power from the engine turned the wheels was straightforward enough—if you thought of the engine as a mainspring, it really was almost just like a clock—but gearboxes were much more complicated. He hadn’t gotten a long enough look at the diagram to understand exactly what happened when you shifted gears. 

He’d known a chauffeur or two who’d insisted they weren’t properly servants, but more of a skilled trade, like tutors, or the chaps who looked after the paintings and library. 

“Are they?” Peter asked. He took a puff from his cigarette. “This is starting to seem like more of a long-shot than it did earlier.”

“Mm,” Thomas said, nodding. The stretch of time when he’d be away at the training course worried him. If the young couple ran out of patience and eloped while he was gone, he could easily come back to find his lordship in no mood whatsoever to take Lady Sybil’s recommendation for a new chauffeur. Quite the reverse, in fact—even if he _didn’t_ figure out that Thomas knew what they had planned. “The Army’s only going to pay for one retraining course,” he said. “I’ve got to get the job promised to me before I go on it.”

“Right,” Peter said uncertainly. 

“And it would really be better if I could be on the job before they elope,” he continued. “He’s bound to _suspect_ I had some idea what they were up to, but I don’t think he’d sack me unless he knew for sure.”

“ _That’s_ the main thing you’re worried about?”

What else? “Oh, the part where we’ll be playing house in his chauffeur’s cottage?” That was, Thomas had to admit, another thing they’d have to be sure of before they invested anything in this plan. “He’s been surprisingly decent about it, really. There’s some sort of…Bates won’t tell me the whole story, but there were two blokes like us in their regiment in South Africa. And he…likes to be generous. Fair to his tenants, kind to his servants, that sort of thing. I think as long as we’re, you know…discreet, and he can pretend he believes the brother story, that part of it could be all right.” 

“Yes,” Peter said, “I got that impression when he mentioned calling the War Office to ask about me, after the _Albion_.” 

So that wasn’t what he was hesitating over—even though it probably should have been. “What, then?”

“You aren’t worried about the part where you have to learn to fix engines?”

“No,” Thomas said. Why would he be?

“Did you see any of the diagrams in those magazines?”

“Of course I did. I’m not blind.”

“…All right.” 

That stung a little bit. “What, you don’t think I can do it?”

“I don’t think _I_ could do it,” Peter said. “But then, I don’t understand clocks, either.”

“Clocks are easy.” 

Peter finished his cigarette and tossed the end down. “All right,” he said, more confidently, clapping Thomas on the shoulder. “You’ll be fine.”

“I know I will.” 

Fortunately, Nurse Crawley appeared in the door to the garage about then, to call them back in. She and Branson had, apparently, reached an agreement on the subject of delaying their own plans long enough to see Thomas and Peter settled. 

“It’ll give me time to sort things out in Ireland,” Branson said, making cow-eyes at Nurse Crawley. “A job, and a house and everything.”

“Good,” Peter said. “I’m glad you’ll get some benefit out of the delay.”

“Yeah, good,” Thomas agreed. “But we’ve gotta—” He glanced at Nurse Crawley and adjusted his wording. “That is, we can’t afford to just assume that, once I’m trained, his lordship will give me the chauffeur job. I’ll only be able to get one retraining grant,” if that, but some of the adverts had prices listed, and between his money and Peter’s, they could just about manage it, “so we’ll need to find out if this is even going to _work_.”

Nurse Crawley didn’t say anything for a moment, and Thomas wondered if he’d been too indirect for her to understand his meaning—or, perhaps, so direct as to be crass. But finally, she said, “Yes, of course. I—I haven’t quite sorted how to tackle Papa, but surely the first thing is to find out about the training courses? We can start doing that, and then…you see, I’ll have to figure out how to tell him that Tom—that Branson is leaving, without him guessing….”

She trailed off, and Peter supplied, “The rest of it. That _will_ be tricky, but I’m sure Thomas has some ideas.”

Of course he did—editing events to remove evidence of twixt-stairs relationships was one of Thomas’s specialties. He began shuffling through the possibilities, and rapidly settled on the simplest. “Branson told me he was thinking about handing in his notice and going back to Ireland. You asked me about my plans—officer to NCO, sort of thing—and I told you I was wondering if there might be some way I could be the chauffeur. Because of my experience driving ambulances in France, you know.”

That neatly nipped her relationship with Branson out of the picture, but it gave Thomas a bit too much initiative for his lordship to feel like he was properly playing Lord Bountiful. And Nurse Crawley might not like giving up the credit for her idea. He went on, “You thought it was a good idea, but then Branson told me the bit about needing to know how to maintain motors, so I went back to you and said never mind, it’s no good, but you thought of the re-training grants, and looked into courses for me.” There; she could have the credit for _Peter’s_ idea, instead. He thought of an additional incentive to add. “And if anyone notices you talking to Branson, it’s because you’re both working on something to help me.”

They all agreed to that approach, though Nurse Crawley said, “But what if Papa wants to know why Branson has told you about his plans, before anyone else?”

“He won’t,” Thomas said. “For all he knows, we’ve been best mates for years.”

“Oh,” she said. “Yes, I suppose so.” 

She looked a little embarrassed, and Peter said fondly, “Thomas used to do that. Come up with explanations for every last detail.”

That was one of the things Thomas had learned from Wardmaster Tully—too many details could be as suspicious as too few. 

Branson said, “Before we go telling his lordship anything, I need to start showing Thomas his way around an engine, and find out if he’s any sort of aptitude for it. Like he said, we need to know if this is going to work, before we get too far ahead of ourselves.”

Thomas couldn’t really argue with that—he knew that the part of the plan that depended on him learning about engines _would_ work, but any story that put Branson and Nurse Crawley in the same conversation carried a slight risk of drawing attention to their arrangement. He couldn’t blame Branson for not wanting to take that risk for no reason. 

And if his shoulder was going to be a problem, better they know that before he and Peter got their hopes up too much. 

They decided to start making inquiries into training courses—Branson writing to his chauffeur friends, and Thomas to the training schools in the adverts—while Thomas started his chauffeuring lessons. “That way,” Nurse Crawley pointed out practically, “we won’t be wasting time while we’re waiting for the replies.”

Branson, it turned out, was very keen on the idea of not wasting any time. Thomas’s first lesson began right then, with Branson raising the bonnet on the car and pointing out various aspects of the motor’s innards. At some point during the proceedings, Peter and Nurse Crawley drifted away, but neither of them quite noticed when it happened—Thomas was too busy trying to keep everything straight in his head, and Branson, apparently, was just that interested in motors. 

By tea-time, Thomas thought he was beginning to get a handle on things. They agreed to meet again the next day to pick up where they left off, and, even better, when Thomas asked if he could borrow the motoring magazines, Branson went to his cottage and fetched not only an additional stack of them, but several books on the subject. 

#

“And how are Sergeant Barrow’s lessons going?” Lady Sybil— _Sybil_ ; just Sybil, now she was going to be his wife—asked, once they had finished kissing for the moment. 

“Well enough,” Tom admitted grudgingly. “He’s clever; I’ll give him that.” Tom had thought that the stack of reading material he’d given Barrow on that first day would, if not put him in his place, at least make him think twice about what he was taking on. But he’d not only taken them without blinking, he’d come back the next day with _pertinent questions_ about the first few chapters. 

“Tell me the truth—you only agreed to teach him to humor me, didn’t you?”

Tom couldn’t deny it. The thought of delaying their marriage for weeks, even months, while Barrow learned to be a chauffeur was agonizing—but with Sybil asking, of course he’d do it, and he’d consoled himself with the thought that, more likely than not, Barrow would storm off in a huff once he started to get an idea of how hard and dirty the work was. As a proud Irishman, Tom thought all Englishmen a bit effete, and one who was an actual poof, on top of it, surely had to be a bit too _dainty_ to work properly on motorcars. 

He’d been mistaken. Barrow always looked a bit like a wet cat when he was getting into the coverall Tom lent him for working on the cars, but once he’d had a minutes or two to adjust to the indignity of it all, he didn’t seem to notice that he was getting his hands dirty. 

And he even—once Tom had worked out the trick of throwing new information at him just _slightly_ faster than he could take it in—forgot to be an utter prick. At least, as long as Tom didn’t make the mistake of trying to help him when his bad shoulder made something difficult.

“It’s not the right sort of work for everyone,” he told Sybil, tactfully. “I had my doubts it would suit him.”

“Everyone thought that about me and nursing,” she pointed out. “But you mustn’t humor me, once we’re married,” she continued seriously. “We’re to be partners. If you disagree with me, you must say so.”

“Oh?” he said teasingly. “You’d like me to lay down the law, like a Victorian paterfamilias?”

“No,” she said, her eyes twinkling. “But how am I to argue my side, if you haven’t presented yours?”

That, Tom had to admit, sounded more like her. “Now I see. You want to know when I disagree, so you can tell me I’m wrong.”

“Of course not,” she said. “Except when you _are_ wrong.” 

This was going to be a very different sort of marriage from what his parents had—but Tom already knew that. 

#

“What’s that you’re reading so intently?” O’Brien asked, in her butter-wouldn’t-melt voice.

Thomas was in the servants’ hall, reading one of his motorcar books. He’d been spending as little time as possible there lately—trying not to wear out his welcome, as it was now about ten days since his lordship had said he could stay “a week or two.” But today, he and Branson were _meant_ to be changing the oil in the touring car, only Lady Mary had suffered some emergency that could only be resolved via a shopping trip to Ripon. 

He was nearly completely sure he could have done the oil change in the tourer on his own—they’d done the landaulet yesterday, so Branson could have taken Lady Mary to Ripon in that—but Branson hadn’t trusted him, so here he was. 

“It’s called _How to Mind Your Own Business_ ,” he said studying a diagram of a high-tension magneto. 

“I only wondered,” she said, all injured innocence. “There’s no need to bark at me.” 

After waiting just long enough that she wouldn’t feel she’d chased him out, Thomas went out for a cigarette, taking his book with him. 

He was just getting back to his diagram when Anna stepped out, too. Thomas sighed inwardly. Another reason he’d been avoiding the servants’ hall was that he didn’t know whether Anna knew anything about Nurse Crawley’s plans—nor, if she didn’t, how she’d react to finding out that he’d known and hadn’t told her.

It had, after all, been his withholding of a secret relating to one of the young ladies that had led to his rupture with O’Brien. 

Thomas thought pretty well of his chances for keeping the upstairs lot from realizing he must have known _something_ about Branson and Nurse Crawley’s plans, but it wouldn’t be nearly as easy to pull the wool over Anna’s eyes. 

“We haven’t seen much of you lately,” she said, taking a seat next to him. 

“I’ve been busy.” _Damn!_ Now she was going to ask what he was busy with.

“Nor of Mr. Fitzroy,” she added. 

Thomas wasn’t sure if that was better or worse. “He’s helping Mrs. Crawley with her soup kitchen men,” he explained. “She’s working on getting them the benefits they’re entitled to—pensions, re-training grants, that sort of stuff.” Thomas wasn’t sure it was a good idea to be helping other people with getting re-training grants—there was only so much money to go around—but that wasn’t the sort of thing you could say to Peter. “A lot of them have trouble filling in the forms and everything.”

“He’s gotten his pension, hasn’t he?”

“Yeah.” Peter had gotten a half-pension—apparently, they thought that, having half the usual number of arms, he’d be able to earn half his living. As with so many things involving Army red tape, it made sense only if you didn’t take into account how the world actually worked—namely, that no one was hiring men to do half a job. “It’ll be a bit of a help, but not enough.” 

“And are you…I don’t mean to pry,” she added quickly. “And no one’s said anything about it being time for you to move on, or anything like that.”

But she couldn’t help wondering, of course. And if he didn’t say something now, it was going to be obvious he was keeping secrets. 

Fortunately, there were _parts_ of the truth that he could tell—and her reaction to hearing them just might give a hint as to whether she knew what Lady Sybil was plotting. “I’m looking into the re-training grants, too,” he said. With an inward sigh, he held up the book, so that she could see the title: _A Practical Handbook on Motor-cars and Their Operation, Maintenance, and Repair_. “One idea we had was if I could be a chauffeur, but it’s a bit more complicated than I thought at first.” 

Anna frowned. “I didn’t know you could drive.”

“You pick things up,” Thomas said, with a shrug. “And Branson’s showing me a few of the finer points.” He had, in fact, had a couple of driving lessons, in addition to the motor-maintenance ones. It wasn’t terribly difficult, but his shoulder _did_ give him some trouble when it came to making tight turns at low speed. 

“That’s kind of him,” Anna said, and was there a hint of hidden meaning in her tone? Thomas wasn’t sure. She continued, “It does make sense, with Mr. Fitzroy. Lots of chauffeurs are marri—I mean, they bring families with them. So it wouldn’t….”

Thomas took pity on her. “Exactly. It’s about the only thing in service where it’s not unusual to have dependents.” Not that Peter was _dependent_ , but that was the story they could tell. “That’s why we thought of it.” In fact, Thomas had wondered a time or two whether, if his lordship _didn’t_ agree to give him Branson’s old job, it might be worth using the re-training grant—if he got one—on a chauffeur’s course anyway. “But there’s a lot to learn. It turns out driving is only the smallest part of it.” Branson hadn’t been lying about that—this book had nearly four hundred pages, and devoted about four and a half of them to the subject of driving. It spent over ten times that on magnetos alone, putting aside the rest of the electrical systems.

“Well, I’m sure you’re clever enough,” Anna said loyally. “Have you….” She hesitated. 

Thomas raised an eyebrow.

“Hasn’t Mr. Branson been talking about going back to Ireland?” she said. 

“He’s been talking about it for years,” Thomas pointed out. 

“He has,” she agreed. “I suppose there’s no way to know when, or if, he’ll go through with it.”

“We don’t really talk about that,” Thomas said, which was true. They pretty much only talked about cars. “I’ve been helping him a bit in the garage,” he went on, because sooner or later someone was bound to notice that he was, “so I’ve learned a fair bit about the quirks of the cars here. Would be a bit of a leg-up if he does decide to bite the bullet.”

“It would,” she agreed. “But…well, you’re not putting all your eggs in one basket, are you?”

She didn’t know, then. She knew why Branson had been hemming and hawing for so long over the question of leaving Downton Abbey, of course, but not that a decision had been reached. “No. Like I said, it’s just one thing we’re thinking about, but a lot of the training courses say they help you find a place once you finish.”

“Gwen’s secretarial course said that,” Anna pointed out. 

“I remember.” That was one of many things that led him to read the materials sent by the schools, in response to his queries, with great skepticism. “Branson’s asking around, among his chauffeur friends, to see if any of them know of a course that’s worthwhile.” At least, he’d said he was, but if so, they’d been much less prompt with their replies than the training schools had. 

“Mr. Branson is being very helpful,” she noted. 

Thomas gave her a sidelong look. “I believe he’s been asked to be.”

The look on her face suggested that she didn’t need to ask who had done the asking. “I see.”

Later that afternoon, Thomas found himself, once again, on his back on the floor of the garage. This time, though, he was under the landaulet, trying to remove the differential housing. Thomas still didn’t quite understand how the differential worked—its job was to allow the right and left wheels to go at slightly different speeds when turning, but precisely how it achieved this feat was a mystery. Since the tourer had to cool down from its journey to Ripon before they could open its crank-case, Thomas had thought this was a good time to investigate the matter. 

The trouble was that removing the housing was a two-handed job, and it was in an awkward spot even if you _did_ have full use of both arms. The two bolts had come off easily enough, but now he had to hold the housing in place with his left hand while he got the others, or else it sagged enough to foul the remaining bolts. If Thomas positioned himself so that he could get his left hand high enough to steady the bloody thing, he couldn’t get enough leverage on the wrench to get the bolts off.

“ _Fuck_.”

Branson’s shoes came into Thomas’s field of view. “You all right?”

“Just bloody marvelous,” Thomas said. His last-ditch solution, in these situations, was to have Peter hold whatever it was that needed holding, but Peter was busy with Sister Crawley’s scarecrows. There had to be a way he could do this. Maybe if he put the other bolts back in, and tried doing them in a different order….

It didn’t seem particularly _likely_ to work, but he didn’t have any better ideas, so he started replacing the bolts he’d just taken off.

Now Branson was getting down on the ground, too, and sliding under the car. “What are you—oh.” He reached up and steadied the housing.

Thomas restrained the impulse to bash his knuckles with the wrench. “I’m fine,” snapped instead. The _point_ was that he had to be able to do these things himself; if he actually got the job, he wouldn’t have Branson to bail him out every time he got stuck. 

Branson sighed testily. “I’m not doing anything Fitzroy couldn’t do,” he pointed out. “Would you feel better waiting until he gets back to do this?”

Thomas would, in fact, but there was no dignified way to admit that. Instead, he said, “You have to use your right hand.” Since Branson was using his left, he couldn’t be sure that Peter _could_ do what he was doing.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Branson said. He crawled out from under the car, turned around, and crawled back under it, putting his right hand on the housing. “Happy now?”

“Ecstatic.” 

Removing the housing was now the work of a moment, and the differential gears were revealed. Branson began pointing out the parts, which did _not_ make it any easier for Thomas to set them in motion in his mind.

“There’s your crown wheel,” he said, “and your worm gear.”

“I know,” Thomas snapped. 

Branson withdrew. 

With a bit of peace and quiet, Thomas was soon able to sort things out. The movement of the paired worm gears was engaged by the pinions, of _course_ , and that was the trick of the thing. Once he was sure he had it all straight, he went to put the housing back on—and, of course, the problem he’d had with removing it occurred again. 

Sliding out from under the car, Thomas found that Branson had retreated to the tourer, and was polishing it a little aggressively. “Er,” he said. 

Wordlessly, Branson came over and held the housing for him. “Thanks,” Thomas said awkwardly. 

“Yeah,” Branson said curtly.

Thomas nipped outside for a cigarette, and by the time he came back in, Branson seemed in a better mood. The tourer’s engine was cool enough to work on now, and once they had the crank-case off and the old oil drained out, Branson began pointing out the differences between this engine and the landaulet’s. “This one’s a six-cylinder, which is actually more complicated, because the cylinders have to fire in pairs of two, but counter-balance each other in groups of three….”

It was a very pretty puzzle, and Thomas was glad he didn’t have to work it out in his head—the engine could be turned over by hand, slowly enough to see how all the parts worked. Branson pointed out several things that could go wrong with the mechanism, and described the symptoms each would produce; then they got on with cleaning everything out with kerosene, and putting it all back together. 

By that point, Thomas thought that Branson was in a good enough mood to handle some of his more pressing questions about magnetos. 

“Enough!” Branson finally said. “Tomorrow, I’ll show you how to test the specific gravity in the batteries, all right?”

That was only tangentially related to magnetos, but Thomas decided not to press his luck. “All right.”

Once they’d finished putting the tools away, Thomas shed the dreadfully unflattering boiler suit he had to wear if he didn’t want to ruin his clothes, and started down for the village.

Peter’s other project, besides helping Mrs. Crawley with the crippled men, was learning to cook. His strategy for doing so had begun and ended with asking Mrs. Entwistle to teach him. Peter was always doing things like that—just _asking_ people for things he had no right to expect—and what was especially maddening about it was how often it _worked_. By now, Peter had mastered tea-cakes, bean soup, and a number of other dishes. Today’s lesson was shepherd’s pie, and Thomas was invited to stay and eat the result. 

As they ate, Peter amusingly described his struggles to figure out a way to peel a potato one-handed. “I’m afraid we may be limited to jacket potatoes,” he warned Thomas.

“Nonsense,” Mrs. Entwistle said. “Mr. Barrow can peel them when he comes in for his tea, can’t you?”

Thomas agreed that he could, but he thought of his own struggles with the differential housing, and wondered if Peter would be satisfied with that solution. 

He got a chance to ask later on, when he and Peter repaired to the pub for a pint—the Entwistles dined much earlier than the Downton servants, so they had time. Once Peter had finished asking after the barman’s bunions—honestly, how _did_ he come to know these things about people?—and they settled at a table, Thomas asked, “Does it bother you, not being able to do things?”

“A bit,” Peter admitted. “But it doesn’t help to dwell on it.” 

Thomas knew perfectly well that it didn’t _help_ , but he wasn’t sure how that translated into not doing it. 

Peter drew him out on the subject of what he’d learned that day, and Thomas somehow wound up telling him about his conversation with Anna. “I’m not sure what she made of it. The whole thing sounds a bit ridiculous said out loud, even without the part where we get Himself to give me the job.”

“It isn’t ridiculous,” Peter said. “If Branson can be a chauffeur, you certainly can.”

Now that, Thomas knew, was Peter appealing to his vanity—Peter _liked_ Branson. (Peter liked almost everybody.) “He practically grew up in a garage. I grew up in a clock shop.” 

“When you get down to it, isn’t a motorcar just a big, noisy clock?”

“No,” Thomas said. “That makes about as much sense as saying I was good in the medical corps because the human body is like a wet, squishy clock.”

“Well, I suppose it sort of is,” Peter said. “You’ve got the heart, which is like the, ah….”

“Mainspring,” Thomas said. “But it isn’t. At all.”

They debated the subject until they’d finished their pints, then went and had a game of darts. Peter was terrible at it—but not any worse than he’d been back when he still had two arms. 

#

“I’ve been thinking,” Mrs. Crawley said, “that what Sergeant Barrow’s application really needs, to finish it off, is something about _you_.”

“Ma’am?” Peter said dubiously. They had been working on the application together, before and after their soup kitchen work. Mrs. Crawley had never quite let on whether she knew the true nature of their relationship, and Thomas had said that he wasn’t sure, either. If she _did_ know, he thought, she’d realize it was the last thing they ought to draw attention to.

“They may wonder why he doesn’t seek a position as a valet,” she said. “It may help if they understand that he needs a position that allows him to fulfill his family responsibilities.”

 _Family responsibilities_ was a phrase used in the application materials, in describing “other information” that the reviewers might find useful. “I expect it’s wives and children they have in mind, when they ask about that,” he pointed out.

“They likely do,” she agreed. “But perhaps they ought to be encouraged to think about the subject more broadly. After all, this grant will help _two_ disabled soldiers to rebuild their lives.” 

Put that way, it was difficult to argue with. 

#

A few days later, Thomas and Peter went to the garage after lunch—it wasn’t a soup kitchen day, and Mrs. Entwistle was doing her marketing in Thirsk—to find Branson and Nurse Crawley deep in consultation. 

“—longer than we hoped for,” she was saying, “but if it really is the best one….”

Thomas cleared his throat, and Nurse Crawley and Branson both jumped. Honestly, if they went round having tête-à-têtes without paying any attention to who might be around, they deserved to be startled. 

“Oh,” Nurse Crawley said, moving a bit further away from Branson. “There you are. I’m glad you’re both here—Tom has gotten some answers about the training courses.”

She’d lately taken to calling Branson by his first name, in front of the two of them. Thomas wondered if she was ever going to get over blushing when she said it. “Oh?” he said. Branson didn’t look too pleased by what he’d found out, which….could mean almost anything, really.

“The only one that anyone had good things to say about was the one offered by the Institution of Automobile Engineers, in London,” Nurse Crawley explained. 

Now Thomas understood Branson’s displeasure. That course was the longest—and most expensive—of the ones they’d gotten information about. It lasted six weeks. “Oh.”

“The others are glorified driving schools,” Branson added. “I suppose you ought to go on that one, but….”

But it would delay his and Nurse Crawley’s elopement considerably. “Six weeks isn’t so terribly long,” Nurse Crawley said, in a tone of one trying to convince herself. 

Thomas considered how to tell her that that wasn’t the half of it. As so often happened, Peter got there first. “There’s also the grant to get,” he said. “The process isn’t a quick one, I’m afraid. I have the forms all ready to go—we just need to fill in the details about the course—but once the War Office has them….some of the men Mrs. Crawley is working with have been waiting a month to hear.”

“Papa can help with that,” Nurse Crawley said. “He knows everyone at the War Office.”

This time, it was _Branson_ who raised the objection before Thomas could. “He _can_ ,” Branson said, “but what are we going to tell him about what the hurry is?”

Everyone looked at Thomas. To buy himself time to think, he offered around his cigarettes—Nurse Crawley and Peter each took one—and lit one for himself. “All right, so Branson needs to leave in a hurry because…no, that doesn’t explain why he can’t leave before I’m finished with my course.” And he couldn’t, because he’d be taking Lady Sybil with him, and his lordship would be too busy chasing after him with a horsewhip to remember that he’d promised Thomas a job. 

“He won’t want to do without a chauffeur for a long time,” Nurse Crawley pointed out hopefully. “Even though Edith can drive, there’s all the other things to do.”

“That raises the question of why he doesn’t just hire a chauffeur who’s already qualified,” Thomas pointed out. That was a weak point in the plan all around; the last thing he wanted to do was shine a signal flare on it. 

“We could just pay for it,” Peter pointed out. 

“You have that kind of money?” Branson asked. 

“War gratuities,” Thomas said. “But it wouldn’t leave us much to live on if this falls through. And we’ve got our living expenses while I’m on the course, too.”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Nurse Crawley said. “You can stay at the London house.”

Thomas wondered just how many favors she thought Lord Grantham would be willing to do for him. Giving him the chauffeur job, when he wasn’t really, quite, qualified for it yet was _already_ a lot to ask, on top of the bit where he’d be _letting two queers live in sin in a cottage he owned, a minute’s walk from his front door_. 

In fact, now that they were nearing the point of actually _asking_ it, Thomas was beginning to wonder if he’d gone temporarily insane even to think about it. 

Returning to the problem of paying for the course, with or without a War Office grant, they went round and round on the subject, but there were really only three possibilities, each unsuitable in their own way: Thomas and Peter could pay for the course themselves, Branson and Nurse Crawley could delay their marriage indefinitely while they waited for a response about the grant, or Nurse Crawley could try to ask his lordship to expedite it, without supplying any sort of convincing explanation of why he should. 

In the end, the best they could come up with was for Nurse Crawley to play things by ear. “If Papa likes the idea, I’ll ask about helping with the grant,” she said. “And if you can stay at the London house. But if he’s difficult to convince, I’ll leave out those parts.”

Thomas would have preferred a more ironclad plan, but they had to work with what they had. “Well,” he said, once Nurse Crawley had started back up for the house. “If it isn’t going to work, at least we’ll know.” 

He didn’t realize that he was hoping Peter would say, _Of course it will work_ , until he didn’t.

#

“Papa?” Sybil peered around the doorframe to Robert’s dressing room. “Before you go down, can we talk?”

“Of course,” Robert said, and Bates gathered up his day suit and discreetly left through the other door. “What is it?”

“Have you….” She hesitated long enough for Robert to start to wonder what outrageous thing she was about to ask. He and Cora had spoken about what they’d do if she wanted to continue her nursing work, now that the war was over, but they hadn’t come to any conclusions. “Have you thought any more about a place for Sergeant Barrow?”

That was something of a relief—if only in comparison. “I have thought about it,” he said. “But I’m afraid I haven’t come up with anything.” Bates had given him to understand that Barrow was just about as strongly opposed to working under Carson again as Carson was to having Thomas work under him. “I’m sorry,” he added. “I know you’re fond of him. But this…feud with Carson, doesn’t leave any options, I’m afraid.” Even leaving aside the matter of Fitzroy. 

She took a deep breath. “That’s the thing,” she said. “There is an option.”

Robert _prayed_ that she wasn’t about to suggest sacking Carson and making Thomas butler. 

“It seems that Branson is planning to go back to Ireland fairly soon. Sergeant Barrow knows how to drive—he picked it up in France—so he thought he might be able to do that. He needs something where he’ll be able to look after his brother, you know. And since lots of chauffeurs have families, it seemed perfect.”

Perhaps he should have made his prayer less specific. “It’s very good of you to think of him,” he said, as seriously as he could—trying to put himself in the frame of mind that he was speaking to a junior officer trying to fix something up for an NCO, not his daughter trying to find a place for a servant she was fond of. “But I’m afraid that driving is only the beginning of a chauffeur’s responsibilities.” 

“I know,” she said. “That is, I do now. Once we’d started talking about it, he asked Branson, and found out that he’d need to know all about fixing engines and things. So he’s been learning as much as he can from Branson, and I’ve been looking in to training courses. The Army offers re-training grants, you see, to partially disabled men, so he can get one of those, and go on a course, and then he’ll know everything he needs to know.”

Robert pinched the bridge of his nose. “Just how long have you and Barrow known that my chauffeur is planning to hand in his notice?”

Sybil avoided his gaze. “Um…I think…he’s been sort of thinking of it for a while. Going back to Ireland, I mean. But he hadn’t quite decided for certain until recently. And I didn’t hear about it until Sergeant Barrow mentioned it to me, of course.” 

In other words, it was a plot of long standing. “I don’t suppose it occurred to either of you that I might want to know about Branson’s imminent departure?” Of course not; what possibly concern of his could it be? “Or, for that matter, that I might prefer to hire a chauffeur who doesn’t need to go on a course to learn the job?”

Sybil folded her hands and rocked back on her heels. “Well, Sergeant Barrow did wonder about that,” she admitted. “But I told him I was sure you’d understand, since you stuck up for Bates even though Mama and Carson didn’t think he ought to have the job.”

It would have been a low shot, except that Robert was fairly sure she _meant_ it. “It isn’t quite the same. Bates is perfectly capable—not to mention experienced—when it comes to the main parts of his job. It’s only the extra duties—waiting at table and so on—where he has difficulty.” Not to mention, Bates had saved his life in South Africa. Barrow had only—

Well, he had stopped Sybil from making a mistake that might have gotten her drummed out of the nursing corps, over that older nurse she had disagreed with. Not to mention keeping Cousin Isobel from taking over the house. And then there was the unspecified problem with which he had helped Matthew in France. 

As well as his service to the King, and that ghastly balls-up over poor Fitzroy being presumed dead. And both of them being crippled. 

But Sybil was continuing, “Sergeant Barrow _is_ perfectly capable of the job—or he will be, once he’s finished the course. It’s a very good one—quite a lot of the courses on offer are nonsense, but we made inquiries. And Branson will be able to tell you how much he’s learned already.”

“I’m sure he will.” It wasn’t as though a man would give his friend anything other than a sterling recommendation. 

Sybil nodded, seeming to miss his sarcasm. “He really is very clever. Branson was very impressed, when he started working with him. I mean, he said he was. And when we were working in the hospital, I saw how quickly he picks things up.”

Perhaps, Robert thought, the idea wasn’t _quite_ as mad as it seemed on the face of it. Barrow had earned a favor or two, and he could look into whether he really was capable of the job—speak to Branson, and to Barrow; find out more about this benighted _course_. But he knew from experience that, when it came to his daughters, anything in the nature of a “we’ll see” or an agreement to consider a plan would be taken as immediate and absolute approval, which could not then be revoked without tears and accusations of cruelty, unfairness, and deceit. 

He was trying to think of some answer that could not be misconstrued in this way when Cora burst through the door, followed closely by Mary. “You must come at once,” Cora said. “Both of you.”

“It’s Matthew,” Mary added.

Robert’s first thought was that he’d taken ill, or injured himself somehow, but Cora and Mary were both smiling. “What’s happened?”

“He walked,” Mary said. There were tears in her eyes. “He stood up, and—oh, come quickly!”

#

“Yes, yes, it’s wonderful,” Mrs. Patmore said. “But are they planning to _eat_ , or just live on joy?”

Thomas knew how she felt. He was glad to hear that Mr. Matthew was walking—apparently Dr. Clarkson had been mistaken in his diagnosis, and his spine had only been bruised—but what he _really_ wanted to know was whether Nurse Crawley had gotten around to speaking to his lordship before everyone was distracted by the good news. 

“I’m sure they’ll want their dinner eventually,” Mrs. Hughes said. “Keep the things warm as best you can.”

Mrs. Patmore began shouting orders at Daisy, and those who had no business in the kitchen made themselves scarce. 

“What I don’t understand,” Thomas said to Anna as they walked back to the servants’ hall, “is how he didn’t notice he was getting the feeling back in his legs.”

“He did,” Bates said. “He said something about it to me, a few weeks ago. Tingling, he said. Apparently Dr. Clarkson told him he was _imagining_ it.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Anna asked, as they took their seats.

“He said not to,” Bates explained. “He didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up.”

They went on talking about Mr. Matthew’s spine for quite some time, but after Bates’s revelation, no one really had anything new to add. Thomas wondered how much more of it he had to listen to, before he could go back to his book without anyone accusing him of being insensitive. 

#

Sybil wondered if she was the only one who noticed Carson’s brief expression of dismay, when Papa invited Dr. Clarkson, Cousin Isobel, and Granny to stay to dinner, after they’d all been summoned to hear—or, in Dr. Clarkson’s case, explain—the wonderful news about Matthew. Having worked herself, she now knew how disruptive an unexpected change in routine could be—no matter how joyous the cause. 

While Carson went off to…well, to do whatever it was he and the other servants would have to do to accommodate the unexpected diners, Papa handed round drinks, his face bearing the biggest smile she’d ever seen on it. Except, perhaps, for the night of the concert, when Matthew and William had come back. 

“Isn’t it splendid?” he said, handing her a glass of sherry.

“Wonderful.” She was glad, now, that she hadn’t left yet. To have heard about this in a letter wouldn’t be nearly as good as sharing it with her whole family. 

Except for Tom, of course, who would be her family soon. 

“Darling,” Papa said, taking her hand. “About Barrow.”

“Yes?” She’d nearly forgotten about Sergeant Barrow, in all the excitement. 

“When I think of the good fortune we’ve had….” He gestured with his drink. “If there’s something we can do, I think we must. I’ll speak to him. Tomorrow.”

“Oh, Papa!” She kissed his cheek. “I knew you’d come round.”

Edith—who’d developed a rather fixed expression as Matthew and Mary, seated on the sofa opposite, talked about their wedding—seized on this distraction. “What are you speaking to Barrow about?”

“He’s going to be the chauffeur,” Sybil explained.

“I’ll _consider_ it,” Papa said, but Sybil knew what that meant. 

“What about Branson?” Edith asked. 

“He’s going back to Ireland,” Papa said. “I’m glad I’m not the last person to hear it.” 

“Hm,” Edith said, frowning. “Do we really _need_ a chauffeur? Everyone drives themselves these days. I could teach the rest of you.”

“Driving is the least of it,” Sybil explained. “I don’t expect you’ll want to put on a coverall and change the crank-case oil, will you? Or crawl underneath and lubricate the gears?” Belatedly, she realized she might be showing a degree of automotive knowledge that would be difficult to explain, and hurried on, “A chauffeur has to know all sorts of things about motors, how to maintain them, and fix them when things go wrong. It’s very complicated.”

“And Thomas knows all that?” Edith sounded skeptical.

“We’re sending him on a course,” Papa said. Under his breath, he added, “Apparently.”

“So we need a chauffeur because of how complicated the job is, but we’re hiring someone who doesn’t know how to do it?” 

Sybil reminded herself that it couldn’t be easy for Edith to watch Mary getting everything she ever wanted. 

“That’s about the size of it,” Papa answered, dryly. “If there’s anything outrageous that you’d like to ask for, this would be a good time.”

#

“His lordship wishes to see you,” Carson announced, when he’d come down from serving the upstairs lunch. “He’s in the library.”

Thomas felt a bit ill. Anna had told him last night that Nurse Crawley had told her that everything was arranged, but of course he’d had no opportunity of speaking to her himself, so there was always the possibility that she’d misunderstood. Perhaps his lordship just wanted to tell him off for having the nerve to involve Lady Sybil in a scheme to set up a love nest on the estate. Or something like that.

He wished Peter were here, but he couldn’t exactly keep his lordship _waiting_ , so, after giving his suit a quick brushing, he went upstairs. 

He also sort of hoped that Nurse Crawley would be in the library, too, when he got there, but she wasn’t. “My lord,” Thomas said, clasping his hands behind his back. “I was so pleased to hear about Mr. Matthew.”

“It’s the answer to all my prayers,” his lordship said, and then got down to business. “I understand that you’ve decided you’d like to be a chauffeur.”

“Yes, my lord. It’s a bit of a change, I know, but I’ve been learning a great deal about it, and there’s a course, if I’m able to get a re-training grant from the War Office, that would, ah, fill in any gaps in what I know. I really do think I’d be good at it, and—” And he was babbling. _Yes, my lord_ was the answer to the question he’d been asked. 

“Yes,” his lordship said, picking up a familiar-looking booklet from the desk in front of him—the prospectus from the course. “Lady Sybil has given me some information about the course. I understand she was looking into things for you.”

“Yes, my lord. She’s been very kind.” 

“It does seem very thorough. And I see there’s a comprehensive examination at the end of it.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Have you applied for this re-training grant, yet?”

“Not yet, my lord. That is, I have the application ready, but I haven’t sent it in.”

“I think you had better not.”

_Fuck._

He wasn’t sure which was worse—that he was going to have to keep standing here looking pleasant until his lordship said something he could read as a dismissal, or that he was going to have to tell Peter.

“The War Office is quite backed up when it comes to reviewing applications, and I’m sure Branson won’t want to delay his departure any longer than necessary,” his lordship went on. “And I do feel that we owe you something for your work in the convalescent home. Here’s what I’m willing to do. I’ll pay for the course, and, upon satisfactory completion of it, give you a trial as chauffeur. But if you’re unable to complete the course—pass the examination, and the rest of it—that’ll be the end of it.”

Thomas was speechless. He’d pass the exam, of course he would, but knowing up-front what the catch was, was almost enough to convince him this _wasn’t_ some sort of terrible joke at his expense. 

His lordship gestured. “I mean, you’ll have a suitable reference, but whatever your next plan is, you’ll have to manage without any extraordinary favors. Does that sound fair?”

“Yes, my lord. More than fair.” More than he’d hoped for, yet there was still one more thing…. “You understand, my lord, that I’m looking for a place where I’ll be able to have my brother with me.”

“I gathered,” his lordship said dryly. “You’ll be discreet, of course.”

“Of course,” Thomas echoed, feeling a little faint. He wondered if he ought to have denied there was anything requiring discretion about a man living with his crippled brother. 

His lordship picked up a pen and drew his checkbook toward himself. “One more thing.”

Bloody hell. What now? “My lord?”

“Lady Sybil gave me the impression that you learned to drive in France.”

 _Fuck_. He had to know that wasn’t true, didn’t he? Why would he be bringing it up, otherwise? “Did she, my lord?” he asked. “That’s, er, a common misconception. It’s the Transport Corps that drives the ambulances.”

“So Dr. Clarkson informed me,” his lordship said, positioning the pen to write the check. “I take it you do know how to drive?”

“Yes, my lord,” Thomas said, wondering exactly how much more his lordship knew. Could he make something up, about how and where he’d learned?

The pen remained poised above the checkbook.

“Branson taught me, my lord.” 

“I thought he must have,” his lordship said, and began to write. 

By the time Thomas got back downstairs, check in hand, Peter was there. “—should all work out nicely,” he was saying to Anna. 

“I hope so,” she said, with a distracted smile. “Thomas! How did it go?”

He shoved the check in Peter’s direction. “I’m going,” he said. “On the course. It worked.”

“Good—what’s this?” Peter asked.

“He’s paying for it,” Thomas said. “If I flunk the exam, I’m not to darken his door ever again, and he’s only agreed to give me a trial as chauffeur, but….” He collapsed into the chair next to Peter’s. “It worked,” he repeated. 

Under the table, Peter pressed his foot against Thomas’s. “I’ve got a bit of news, too.”

“What’s that?”

“While we’re in London, I’ll be doing a course of physiotherapy and rehabilitation. Learning all the tricks for doing things one-handed. Mrs. Crawley’s been working on setting it up for me.”

“That’s wonderful,” Thomas said, trying hard to mean it. It was, of course. But he’d hoped that—wherever they stayed in London—he’d be coming home to Peter after his day’s work. “At the Royal Orthopedic? I know my way around there pretty well. I expect I can smuggle you out from time to time.”

“It’s a day program, dearest,” Peter said. “At Queen Mary’s, as it happens. We’ll have to work out where we’re going to stay—but wherever it is, we’ll stay there together.”

That, Thomas thought, might be the best news he’d heard all day.

Later that afternoon Peter talked Branson into showing them his cottage—the cottage that would, once Thomas had done his course and passed his exam, be _theirs_. It wasn’t large—two rooms up and two down, plus a small kitchen and an even smaller bathroom—but it looked like it would be comfortable. 

More importantly, it was private, and not under the roof of Downton Abbey. The bedroom Branson was using had a double bed in it, too. Painfully aware of Branson’s presence, neither of them commented on this feature. 

The other bedroom had a single bed, like in the servants’ quarters, and a thin coating of dust. The chauffeur before Branson had had a kid, Thomas remembered vaguely. “This one can be yours,” he said. Branson probably _knew_ , but there was the principle of the thing. 

“All right,” Peter said, straight-faced. “I can fix it up a bit.” 

From the tiny passageway—more of a landing, really—Branson sighed. “Neither of you actually has a brother, do you?”

Not really; Jamie didn’t count. “Why do you ask?”

“If you did, you’d know that you ought to be arguing about which one of you gets the bigger room,” Branson explained. 

They were spared having to come up with a reply—or stage an argument for his benefit—by the sound of Branson’s boots clomping down the stairs. 

Peter took advantage of the relative privacy to put his arm around Thomas. “We’ll have to improve our act,” he observed. 

“Yes,” Thomas agreed. 

But not here. Not in their own house. 

Here, they wouldn’t have to pretend to be anything but what they were.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The book that Thomas reads in this chapter is real, and available on Hathitrust, as is _The motor car and its engine, a practical treatise for motor engineers- including owners and chauffeurs_. One of these is a simple overview in plain language, and one is much more technical, but I no longer remember which was which.
> 
> The Institution of Automobile Engineers exists, but I found no particular evidence that it operated a chauffeurs’ school (or that it did not). However, the New York School of Automobile Engineers, did, and I used its prospectus (also on Hathitrust) as a guide to how Thomas's course might work.


	34. Chapter 27: April-May, 1919

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas and Peter meet up with some old friends in London. Returning to Downton, they find changes afoot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter corresponds with episode 2x08--and please remember that Julian Fellowes is entirely to blame for how it ends! And we at least have an epilogue to look forward to, which will bring a long-awaited happy development.

“Ask me another one,” Thomas said. They were in a Lyons’ tea shop, where Lisel, Peter’s governess friend, was supposed to be meeting them. She was late, and Thomas was not inclined to waste the time. 

Peter referred to the sheet of sample exam questions. “Identify the three types of fuel feed systems, and describe the advantages and disadvantages of each.”

That was an easy one. “The three types are gravity, pressure, and vacuum.” No one used gravity anymore, so he’d get that one out of the way first. “The disadvantages are, in design, that the fuel tank has to be located somewhere above the engine, and in safety, that if the engine catches fire, you can’t stop _gravity_ to keep the fuel from going into the fire. Advantages…it’s so simple not much can go wrong with it, I guess. As for pressure systems….”

He was still giving his answer when Lisel turned up; he stood, but didn’t stop. She was a governess; she ought to understand about preparing for examinations. 

And she did, apparently. She waited for him to come to the end of his answer before saying, “It’s good to see both of you looking so well.”

Peter _did_ look well—he was starting to regain the weight he’d lost while he was in Germany, and they’d been in London long enough, now, not to look for ghosts on every street corner. Neither of them had so much as _mentioned_ the Criterion, but Peter had—of course—made plenty of friends from his program at Queen Mary’s, and it suited him, having things to do and people to talk to.

Thomas would have been perfectly happy never having to talk to anyone but Peter, but they were different in that way.

Lisel asked about his time in Germany, and Peter talked about it in the same light, airy sort of way he always did, and had in his letters. “Oh, we were all right, really. Some of the prison camps were rather bad, but we were in a _hospital_ ,” and that sort of thing. 

At one point, she said, “I can’t believe the Red Cross did not notify us. I feel I should apologize on behalf of my countrymen.” 

That’s right; the Red Cross headquarters was in Switzerland. “I’m sure losing you to England was a blow to their famous efficiency,” Peter said gallantly. 

More practically, Thomas added, “It could well have been the Germans’ doing. I don’t suppose we’ll ever know quite how it happened.”

Peter also talked enthusiastically about what he was doing at Queen Mary’s. They had him in something they called a “one-hander’s class,” which was, as the name implied, for men who’d lost a hand or arm. “It’s really a very good idea, working with us all together,” he explained. “Nearly everyone has been managing without his hand for a while now, so we’ve all worked out ways of doing things, and this way, we can learn from each other. One chap even came up with a way to tie shoes….”

If Thomas had had to relearn, as a grown man, how to tie his shoes, he was certain he would rather have had hot irons held to his eyelids than discuss it, but Peter didn’t seem to mind. And the shoe-tying method really was fairly clever. It involved putting a knot in one end of the shoe-lace, like a piece of sewing thread, and pulling it through the first hole as far as the knot, so that you were working with only one free end of lace instead of two. There was a bit of a trick to stringing the single lace through the rest of the holes, and at the end of it, you knotted it around itself and tucked the free end away. 

Some of the blokes, Peter said, could only manage the last step, after someone else had laced up their shoes for them, but of course Peter could do the both parts. 

“And your chauffeuring course?” Lisel asked, once they had exhausted the subject of what Peter had been learning. “Peter writes that it’s very complicated.”

“It’s not so bad,” Thomas said. “We do a couple of hours in the classroom every morning, so that’s a bit of a change.” RAMC training had involved _some_ classroom instruction, but not much. It felt strange to be sitting at a desk taking notes again, after all these years out of school—but at least the instructors didn’t smack your hands with the pointer if you blotted your copy-book. “But then in the afternoons we’re either in the workshop or out on the road.” 

The course put a bit more emphasis on the actual driving bit than Branson’s books had—mostly learning the traffic laws, and practicing driving under various conditions. During a convenient cold snap, for instance, they’d flooded the driving track with water, which was then allowed to freeze, and you had to practice steering out of skids. 

Thomas somehow ended up on the subject of magnetos—Thomas still felt that his grasp of them was a bit shaky—and Lisel was able to fill in a few gaps in his understanding of magnetism, using a bit of salt from the table’s salt-shaker to sketch out magnetic fields. 

“I admit,” she said, sweeping up the salt and depositing it in her saucer, “I did not realize how much science was involved in motor-cars. I wonder if Lady H.’s chauffeur would be willing to help with the girls’ lessons? Laura—the elder of my pupils—has become more interested in frocks and fellows than lessons, but she is keen to learn to drive. Perhaps introducing a practical aspect would persuade her to take her lessons seriously.”

“Might need to be careful about that,” Thomas said, thinking of recent events at Downton. “Depending on what the chauffeur looks like.”

Lisel looked a bit puzzled at that, and Peter explained, “Lord G.’s daughter has fallen in love with their current chauffeur.” To Thomas, he added, “but if they have the same chauffeur in the country as before, he’s about fifty. Probably not a lot of risk, there.”

“He is,” Lisel confirmed. “Old enough not to be called up, thankfully.”

Speaking of old blokes, Lisel asked after Anna—they’d exchanged a few letters, during the time Thomas had been away, apparently—and Peter brought her up to date on the melodrama of Bates and the late Mrs. Bates, concluding, “So they’re free to marry now, legally, but I suppose they feel it would be better to wait until all the questions over her death are settled.”

Thomas privately thought that that could be a long wait—would the police _ever_ pronounce themselves satisfied that Bates hadn’t killed his wife, or would they simply move on to other things?—but he’d been keeping that thought to himself for a while now, since Peter had told him Anna was unlikely to find it helpful.

“Will they leave service, then?” Lisel asked. 

Peter frowned a bit. “You know, I got the impression they were planning on staying, at least for a while.”

“His lordship told them they could have a cottage,” Thomas chipped in. “Ages ago; when they first started talking about getting married.”

“How lovely,” Lisel said. “You’ll be neighbors.”

Thomas hadn’t thought of it quite that way before. “Huh.” 

“We’ll have to have them over to dinner,” Peter said. 

They wouldn’t _have_ to. But. Well, it was a thought. 

#

“Anna, have you heard anything from Thomas?” Mrs. Hughes asked, one afternoon at tea. At the head of the table, Mr. Carson harrumphed. 

“I’ve just had a letter from Mr. Fitzroy, as a matter of fact,” she said. “He says that the course is going well, but now it’s almost time for the exams, Thomas is getting a bit frantic.” 

Daisy paused in going around with the teapot to ask, “What kind of examination do they give, in a chauffeuring course?”

“He says there’s a written examination, a driving test, and a practical examination in the workshop,” Anna explained. “The written part is mostly about how engines work, and a bit about traffic laws and how to drive safely. He’s a bit worried about the practical, because they can ask them to demonstrate almost anything, and they could choose something that’s difficult with his shoulder.”

“And what is he planning to do about those things if he _does_ become a chauffeur?” Mr. Carson asked. 

“He’ll have Mr. Fitzroy to lend him a hand,” Anna said. 

“As long as he only needs the one,” Miss O’Brien pointed out tartly. 

Anna thought that even Mr. Carson, who made no secret that he would prefer it if Mr. Fitzroy were anywhere but at Downton, looked a little disgusted at that. 

“Miss O’Brien,” Mrs. Hughes said sharply. 

Mr. Carson attempted a change of subject. “Do we know anything about Mr. Branson’s plans? I’ll be sorry to see him go.”

Anna concentrated intently on her tea-cake. Lady Sybil had not offered any confidences on the subject—a fact for which Anna was grateful, as it would have put her in a very awkward position to have definite knowledge of a plan of which his lordship and her ladyship would certainly disapprove—but she couldn’t help but pick up some hints of what was afoot.

For one thing, Lady Sybil always seemed to know precisely how much longer it was until Thomas was expected back from his course. As if she were counting down the days. For another, she had _stopped_ asking Anna carefully-casual questions about such subjects as whether two people from different worlds could _really_ understand each other, and how various household routines were conducted in what she called “a more ordinary house.”

If interrogated on the subject—and Anna knew she had Thomas’s influence to thank that she was even thinking of it in that way—she could claim she’d had _some_ idea about Lady Sybil’s feelings for Branson, but had believed she’d made the sensible decision to part ways.

It _might_ even be true.

#

The Wardmaster greeted Thomas with enthusiastic shoulder-thumping, which rapidly turned into something that an outside observer, unfamiliar with the Wardmaster, just might have termed a hug. “Now, aren’t you a sight for sore fucking eyes?”

“I’m glad to see you too, Sergeant,” Thomas said.

The Wardmaster chuckled. “Posh fucker,” he said fondly. Giving Thomas a final pat, he ambled over to the bar for a brief consultation with the barman, returning with a bottle of something and a couple of glasses. “So,” he said, settling his bulk into one of the pub’s rickety chairs and pouring. “A fucking chauffeur? Don’t mind me, son, but it seems like kind of a fucking waste.”

“I thought so too, really, but motorcars are actually a lot more interesting than I thought,” Thomas said, and launched into the by-now-familiar explanation of how chauffeuring was a lot more complicated than just driving, concluding, “Besides that, with so many normal people driving their own cars these days, there could be a bit of extra money in doing repairs on the side.” Enough, perhaps to save something up. Perhaps it was an auto-repair shop, that they’d have one day, if they wanted. 

It could even have a small side-line in clocks. 

“All right, if you say so,” the Wardmaster said, topping up their glasses. “But you’re not going to have any lads to look after, now I’ve taught you all I know.”

Thomas felt oddly warm inside, but that might have been the whiskey. “I’ll have one,” he said. And that might be nice, for a while at least, really—having only himself and Peter to look after. “My brother’s going to live with me. I told you about his arm, didn’t I?” He hadn’t put in a letter that Peter wasn’t his brother, of course, and he wondered now how he could say so—and whether he ought to. “That’s kind of the point of it, that I’ll have my own cottage and all.” 

“Right,” the Wardmaster said. “Fitzroy. You’ve different fathers, I take it?”

“Yes,” Thomas admitted, lighting a cigarette.

“Different mothers, too?”

Naturally, he’d figured it out. “Yeah.”

Admiringly, the Wardmaster said, “Now that’s a good fucking dodge. Hell of a lot better than pretending you’re some Rupert’s fucking valet, if you ask me.” 

“It is,” Thomas agreed. 

“And this Earl of What-the-fuck, he doesn’t suspect?”

Now Thomas hesitated. This was the part that really sounded insane. “He knows.” 

The Wardmaster stared at him for a moment, then nodded, tipping the bottle over their glasses again. “Oh, he’s…?”

“No,” Thomas said. “Devoted to his wife, as a matter of fact.” If it _was_ like that, Thomas would have been valet ages ago. 

“Fuck me blind,” the Wardmaster said, sitting back in his chair. “And he’s promised you this job?”

“As long as I did all right on my exams, yes.” Thomas had sat them earlier that day—he’d decided that, since the promised postwar drink with the Wardmaster was bound to turn into at least half a dozen drinks, it was best to save it for _after_ he was finished cramming an entire trade’s worth of knowledge into his head, and then retrieving it on command. “His daughter—the nurse I told you about—talked him into it.” 

“Suppose he likes that he can trust you with his daughters’ fucking virtue,” the Wardmaster noted. 

Thomas had to laugh at that. “You have no fucking idea,” he said, and explained about Branson. 

The Wardmaster saw the humor in it, but also asked, “That shit going to splash back on you, son?”

“We’ve thought of that,” he said, and explained how they’d worked out the timing, so that he’d be settled into the job by the time the trap was sprung. “He’ll be furious, but he isn’t one to take it out on the bloke who happens to be standing nearest, I’ll give him that.” 

They moved on to talking about the 47th, and where the survivors had ended up. The Wardmaster and Corporal Jessop were at one of the training camps now, dealing with Spanish Flu cases among the men who were pouring back into the country from France and Belgium. “Jess wanted like hell to be here, but he’s working on wards, and they don’t want ‘em circulating too much. This flu’s infection as hell, and it’s a real pig-fucker.”

He went on to describe the illness—rapid progression into pneumonia, fevers high enough to cause delirium and, eventually, death—and the treatments, or lack thereof. “Just about all you can do is try to keep the poor fuckers alive long enough to fight it off. Bring the fever down as much as you can—we’re finding aspirin’s good for that, besides the usual shit—and try to keep them breathing.”

It was about then—and about halfway through the bottle of whiskey—that Peter turned up. He’d had a full day at the rehabilitation program, but had agreed to meet them at the pub afterward. Thomas was a bit anxious over what he and the Wardmaster would make of each other. 

Peter braced up and said, “Sergeant.” 

“As you were, Corporal,” the Wardmaster said dryly, even though Peter wasn’t in the Army anymore—was even wearing his civilian greatcoat, which he’d picked up from Sir H.’s house a while ago. He kicked out a chair in Peter’s direction. “You want a fucking drink?”

Peter accepted, and Thomas darted off to the bar for another glass. When he got back, Peter was, apparently, detailing his work history. “—junior footman at Lady Waterstone’s,” he was saying. “That’s where Thomas and I first got to know each other. It was his first place, so I showed him the ropes, a bit.”

He went on explaining how they’d gone on to work at number of London houses, and _didn’t_ —for which Thomas was grateful—explain that he, Peter, had been steadily working his way up the ladder, from junior footman to full footman to first footman and finally valet, while Thomas caromed his way from one place to the next, fucking every gentleman who looked at him twice. 

“So then the war started, and Sir H. wanted all his manservants to join up—the butler was too old, but me, the footman, and the chauffeur all went. I wangled my way into the RAMC because I thought it’d offer decent odds of coming back in one piece. It nearly worked,” he added ruefully.

The Wardmaster asked Peter several questions about where he’d been posted and what he’d done there, and Thomas realized that it was not so much that Peter was reciting his work history, as that the Wardmaster was _interrogating_ him about it. 

“And then I pretty much sat out the last three-quarters of the war, in a German hospital.” Peter added hastily, “We were looking after our own people—British and French prisoners—but we weren’t in any danger.”

“Apart from losing your _arm_ ,” Thomas pointed out. 

“That was my own fault, really,” Peter said, and explained about nicking his finger on a bit of shrapnel inside a patient, and the infection creeping its way up his arm. “Nothing like what happened to Thomas.”

“Fuck,” the Wardmaster muttered, and knocked back his drink. To Thomas, he said, “You know, son, I….” After a moment, he gave up on finishing that sentence and topped up their drinks instead. 

Peter talked a bit more about his war, and when that subject had been exhausted, the Wardmaster asked, “So what is it you’re going to be doing, while Barrow’s chauffeuring?”

Peter didn’t even blink before answering, “Keeping house, mostly. I’ve been learning to cook.” He went on to explain about his cooking lessons with Mrs. Entwistle’s, and his work with Mrs. Crawley’s cripples. “That’ll be finished before long—if we’re lucky—but I’m sure I’ll find something else to occupy myself, after that.”

“Huh,” the Wardmaster said, and lit a cigarette. After taking several meditative drags from it, he said, “All right. You’ll do.”

It was only then that Thomas realized that what he’d just been watching was the Wardmaster _asking Peter about his intentions_. 

He did call Thomas _son_ all the time, and wasn’t something he said to everyone. Perhaps Thomas ought to have taken the hint. 

With that decided, the Wardmaster let the conversation move on to lighter ground, mostly talking about Thomas’s time at the 47th. When he found out that Peter had never heard the Hand Story, he _told_ it, with even more flourishes—not to mention _fucks_ —than when Manning had told it the first time, in the barn. 

“You didn’t,” Peter said, when the Wardmaster repeated the poncy, for-public-consumption version of what Thomas had said to the handless man. _Would this, perchance, be the ring in question, my good sir_ or some shite like that. 

“I did not,” Thomas said. “All I did was ask him if it was his.”

“I wondered about that,” the Wardmaster said. “You don’t normally play the posh fucker quite that hard. But it makes it funnier when you say, _It was on your fucking hand, mate_.”

“I did say _that_ ,” Thomas admitted. 

They stayed at the pub until last orders—Thomas vaguely remembered a pie and chips in there somewhere, about the time they’d finished the whiskey and moved on to pints—and managed, more through luck than anything, to find their way back to the boardinghouse where they were staying. 

They had decided not to press their luck on the subject of Grantham House, which did have its advantages. They had to make sure they acted like brothers when in view of the landlady or the other residents—Branson’s hint on the subject had proved helpful there—and they didn’t quite dare push the two narrow single beds together, but once they had jammed a chair-back under the doorknob, they could cram themselves into one of them for a bit of a cuddle before parting for actual sleep. It was all right—especially knowing that they’d have a proper bed to share before long.

If Thomas had passed his exams. 

#

“I’m sure you did pass them, love,” Peter said, “but even if you didn’t, we’ll be all right. You know that, don’t you?”

“I passed them,” Thomas said grimly. Peter could nearly see his fur standing on end. 

It was, at long last, time for the examination results be posted, and Peter had thought it best to go along with him to see them. Peter had thought Thomas was keyed up _before_ the exams, but for the last few days he’d been practically vibrating. “I know,” Peter said. “I’m just saying that our future happiness does not rest entirely on the next hour.”

Thomas’s only answer was a baleful look turned in his direction. 

It was really almost nearly certain that he _had_ done well, Peter thought. If there was one fault Thomas did not have, it was an excess of self-confidence and optimism. And he certainly seemed knowledgeable enough about motorcars when he was badgering Peter to quiz him on the topic. But Peter also knew that if he _had_ struggled with some part of the course, he’d have rather been shot than admit it. 

The Institution of Automobile Engineers proper was a rather grand set of buildings, between Birdcage Walk and Prince’s Street, but the chauffeurs’ school was located in a more modest outbuilding around the back. Thomas steered them to a sort of lounge—it reminded Peter a bit of an orderlies’ room—where about a dozen men were nervously smoking cigarettes and drinking urn tea. 

“They aren’t posted yet,” one of them told Thomas when they entered. 

“Typical,” Thomas said, and got them cups of tea. 

They took seats near the outskirts of the group, and Thomas lit a cigarette. He’d worked his way through the better part of a pack that morning alone; Peter was sure it wasn’t helping with the vibrating, but you couldn’t tell Thomas that. 

“You must be the brother,” the man nearest them said, extending his hand. “I’m Porter.”

Peter put down his teacup and attempted an expression that would convey that, naturally, Thomas had spoken of Porter, without inviting further questions on the topic. 

In fact, nearly all Thomas had said about the others in his class was that about half were car-mad lads—too young to have been called up, mostly—and most of the rest were coachmen or grooms who’d come back from the war to find their employers in no particular hurry to replace the horses that had been requisitioned for the war effort. Porter looked to be one of the former category. 

He was about to introduce himself, in turn, when Porter said, “And you’d be Mr. Barrow as well, of course.”

Peter knew perfectly well that he meant that, as brothers, Peter and Thomas would more likely than not have the same surname, but it still felt oddly warming to hear himself called _Mr. Barrow_. Almost as though they really were married. He waited a moment to see if Thomas would correct the error, and when he didn’t, tipped his hat mentally in Branson’s direction and said, “Strictly speaking, I’m Mr. Barrow. He’s Mr. Thomas Barrow. I’m the elder, you see.”

Thomas huffed, precisely as he would if Peter really _did_ make a point about his being older. “But not my nursemaid,” he grumbled, and explain, “He’s invited himself along to stop me jumping off a bridge after we get the results.”

The man on Porter’s other side scoffed. “ _You’ve_ got nothing to worry about,” he said. “You or Talmudge. It’s the rest of us who ought to have minders today.”

Talmudge was the only one of Thomas’s classmates Peter actually _had_ heard of. He’d been in the Transport Corps during the war and, according to Thomas, already knew everything anyway. _Don’t know why he’s even there_ , Thomas had said, _unless it’s just to show the rest of us up_. 

For the next half-hour or so, the men smoked and talked, mostly about exam questions that had given them particular difficulty. Thomas said little, apart from an occasional “Too right,” or “Bloody typical.” About every five minutes, someone would wander off into the passage, where the results were due to be posted, and return to give a slight shake of his head.

Finally, one of them came back and, instead of shaking his head, said tersely, “They’re up.”

There was a mass migration toward the door. Thomas leaned back in his chair and lit another cigarette. 

Peter hesitated. “Do you…want me to go and look?”

“I’ll look when I’m done with this,” he said, gesturing with the cigarette. 

From the passage came a variety of sounds of delight and dismay. After a bit, the lad who’d said Thomas had nothing to worry about trudged back in. “—not as bad as all that,” said the man who was with him. “If you did well enough on the other two, they’ll let you take the short course and try the written again.”

“But did I do well enough?” the youth asked, his voice bitter. 

Thomas shot him a look that could have been either sympathy or schadenfreude, and stubbed out his cigarette, standing up in the same motion. 

Peter trailed him out into the corridor. The knot of men standing around the board where the results were posted parted to let Thomas through. There were three lists posted, and when Peter got close enough, he saw that it was one for each examination—written, practical, and driving. 

“Ha,” Thomas said, looking at the first. Then, “Typical,” as he read the next, and “Bloody hell,” on the third.

Worried, Peter elbowed his way through the crowd. The list for the written exam read, “1. Barrow. 2. Talmudge,” and so on. The practical went, “1. Talmudge. 2. Barrow,” and for the driving test, “1. Talmudge. 2. Porter. 3. Barrow….”

 _Oh, for pity’s sake_. “ _That’s_ what you were worried about?” Peter demanded. “Whether you _beat_ this Talmudge person?”

“I _told_ you I knew I’d passed,” Thomas said, in an injured tone. “It’s hardly my fault you didn’t believe me.”

The trouble with pretended brotherly bickering was that it was difficult to tell when Thomas actually meant what he said. This time, Peter suspected he might. “I did believe in you,” he said. “I just thought maybe the instructors had got it wrong.”

Turning away from the lists, Thomas said, “It was the three-point turn that got me, on the driving one. You know I have trouble with those.” 

“I know,” Peter agreed. “Come on; let’s get a pint.” 

#

“Thomas,” Peter said, smiling as though they had last seen each other months ago, instead of about a quarter of an hour, when, after they’d both walked up from the train station, Thomas had gone back in one of the cars to get their luggage. “Mrs. Hughes was just telling me that she and Anna have given our cottage a thorough spring-cleaning, so it’s all ready for us.”

“Have they?” Thomas asked, a little warily, as he entered the servants’ hall. He couldn’t help bracing himself for the moment when this all blew up in their faces. 

“Mr. Branson left it in a bit of a state,” Mrs. Hughes confirmed, with a glance at Anna. “Men never do know what they’re doing when it comes to keeping house.”

There was a moment of awkward silence, until Anna said, “Present company excepted, I’m sure.”

“We’ll return the favor when you and Mr. Bates set up home,” Peter told her. 

Thomas was itching to go and see the cottage, now that it was properly theirs, but before he could figure out a way to hustle Peter out the door, Daisy turned up and started pouring more tea into the cup that was sitting in front of Peter. “Do you want one, too, Thomas?”

“It’s Mr. Barrow now,” he reminded her. “And yes.” 

Placidly, she fetched another cup from the sideboard. “How was it in London? Was it strange, being back in school?”

“It was fine,” Thomas said. 

“He was at the head of the class in the written examination,” Peter said proudly. 

Thomas huffed. Now they were bound to ask about the others, and sure enough, Anna did. “And you did all right on the others?”

“Yes,” Thomas said, in a tone that he hoped would communicate that he didn’t wish to discuss the matter further. 

Anna, Mrs. Hughes, and even Daisy exchanged a look. “Well, as long as you passed them,” Mrs. Hughes said kindly. 

“He was second and third on the other two,” Peter explained. “But he wanted to be first in all three.”

Mrs. Hughes laughed. “Now, _that_ I believe.” 

They chatted a bit more, Mrs. Hughes and Anna amusingly describing the slovenly condition in which Branson had left such vital areas as the floor under the dresser and the grease-trap in the kitchen sink, until Carson darkened the doorway. 

Thomas stood up, and Peter and Anna as well, but somehow Carson still managed to look down his nose at him. “Mr. Barrow,” he said, with sarcastic emphasis. 

“Mr. Carson,” Thomas replied, flatly.

“I take it,” he said ponderously, “that you’ve passed your course.”

“I have,” Thomas agreed.

“And he did very well,” Mrs. Hughes added. “First in the class in his written examination.”

She did not mention the other two, and Thomas was grateful. He had a feeling that Carson would find second and third places no more impressive than Thomas himself did. 

“Congratulations,” Carson said insincerely. “But now that you are back, need I remind you that chauffeurs are _outdoor_ staff?”

“No,” Thomas said, reaching for his hat. “We only stopped in to let everyone know we were back, and Mrs. Hughes was kind enough to offer us a cup of tea. It won’t happen again.”

“Mr. Barrow,” Mrs. Hughes said, but Thomas was already halfway out the door, with Peter hurrying to catch up. 

Thomas had been a bit glad, in a secret, soppy sort of way, to find that Peter hadn’t gone into their cottage without him—so that they could enter their own home, for the first time, together. He tried not to let Carson spoil the moment—he didn’t _deserve_ to spoil it—but he couldn’t quite find the lighthearted remarks he’d been planning about carrying across thresholds and how neither of them had the arms for it, so he just opened the door and gestured for Peter to precede him. 

The front door opened right into the sitting room. There was a fire laid in the grate, and lamps filled and trimmed; Peter bustled about lighting them, with housewifely efficiency. Thomas wandered into the kitchen and puzzled a bit over the stove—it was a different and more complicated type than he’d encountered in the war. Peter soon followed him in. “Shall we have a cup of tea?” he asked.

“All right,” Thomas agreed—it might take the taste of the last one out of his mouth.

Peter did a bit more bustling, and this time Thomas paid attention, so that he’d know how to operate the stove. After their cuppa, they set about unpacking. 

Thomas had vaguely envisioned getting a hall-boy to take their trunks up the narrow staircase to the bedrooms, but he was in no mood to ask Carson for any favors, and so they hauled them up between them. They put Thomas’s in the front bedroom—the one with the double bed—and Thomas would have done the same with Peter’s, but Peter steered them instead to the smaller room. “Suppose it is a bit more _discreet_ to keep your stuff in here,” he admitted. The cottage offered more privacy than either of them had ever had in their lives, but they still had to be prepared for the possibility that someone might poke their nose in. 

“Mm,” Peter said. “This one can be my dressing room. You can banish me to it when we quarrel, like Lady Grantham does.”

Peter could make anything all right. Thomas sometimes forgot that, but that was all right, too, because then he got to discover it again. It wasn’t quite usual for married couples of the Crawleys’ class to share a bedroom; that was why Lord Grantham’s dressing room had a bed in it. For the look of the thing. “Right,” he said, grinning like a fool. “Except we’re not going to quarrel.” He hoped not, anyway. “Not sure why you get the dressing room, though.”

“Because I’ve got a valet,” Peter said, leaning over and kissing his cheek. 

“Oh yeah?” Thomas pretended to misunderstand. “Is he any good?”

“I was very lucky to get him,” Peter answered. “He’s lucky, too, not to have to give it up, now he’s taken up chauffeuring.”

It was Peter’s usual sort of putting-a-good-face-on-things, pretending it was all right that he couldn’t dress himself now, but as he said it, the world tilted a bit on its axis, and Thomas laughed out loud—laughed, in fact, until tears came to his eyes. 

Looking at him with some concern, Peter said, “It wasn’t _that_ funny.”

Thomas shook his head. “It’s just.” He chuckled again. “Bloody hell. Before you came back, when I was trying to sort out what I’d do for a job, they all kept saying I ought to valet a crippled gentleman. I got so sick of hearing it. And now….” He gestured vaguely. “They were right. Just…not the way they thought.”

“Thomas Barrow,” Peter said. “Professional chauffeur, amateur valet.” 

“Oi,” Thomas protested. There was nothing amateurish about his valeting, thank you very much.

Peter kissed him again. “Amateur,” he said. “From the Latin _amare_. To love.” 

_Oh._

Some time later, they were lying on the double bed, Thomas’s head on Peter’s chest, when Peter said, “Oh, damn.”

Thomas’s warm lassitude fled. “What?”

“I was just thinking about having our first supper in our cottage,” Peter explained. 

“And?”

“And we really ought to have gone to the shops earlier. They’ll be shutting any minute.”

Neither of them had ever had to think about things like that before—meals had always just _appeared_ , in the servants’ hall. From which they were now banished. “Oh,” Thomas said, sitting up. “Well, I suppose we’ll….” _Not_ go over to the house and ask Mrs. Patmore if they could borrow a cup of everything, that was for sure and certain. “Have to get our supper at the pub.” 

“Unless Branson’s left something behind,” Peter agreed. “And it’ll be tea and cigarettes for breakfast tomorrow, but I’ll get something nice for elevenses, and bring it to you in the garage.”

“Perfect,” Thomas said, and leaned down to kiss him again. 

After tidying themselves up a bit and putting their clothes back in order, they went downstairs to investigate the larder. Branson had, indeed, left some things: a tin of sardines, a tin of baked beans, and a box of salt. 

“Hm,” Peter said. 

Thomas quite agreed. 

They were still trying to decide which option was less unappealing—going out in public, or having their first dinner in their new home be beans and sardines—when there was a knock at the door. 

Belatedly, it occurred to Thomas that, being the chauffeur, he might very well be supposed to drive somewhere—to fetch the Dowager, or Mrs. Crawley, or both, from the village for dinner, for example. He ought to have found out from Carson if there was any driving to be done that day, but Carson had been too busy being _rude_ , so….

Peter went and answered the door. “Anna,” Thomas heard him say. “Do come in.”

When Thomas got to the front room, Anna was standing there, with a basket over her arm. “Mrs. Patmore fixed this up for you,” she said, handing the basket to Peter. “We thought you might not have had time to get to the shops.”

“We were just discussing exactly that,” Peter admitted. Leading Anna back to the kitchen, he explained about the beans. “We were trying to decide whether to eat them, or get our supper at the pub.”

“Well, perhaps this will help you make a decision,” Anna said. 

Peter offered Anna a cup of tea, and while he was making it, Thomas took the opportunity to ask her if she knew anything about anyone needing the motor that evening. “Mr. Carson didn’t mention it, but as you saw, he had other things on his mind.”

“I don’t think so,” Anna said. “The Dowager isn’t expected, nor Mrs. Crawley. Dr. Clarkson’s gotten busy, and she’s been helping him.” 

“Spanish flu?” Thomas asked.

Anna nodded. “Just a few cases, so far.” 

She went on to bring them up to date on the village and household news—the progress of plans for Mr. Matthew and Lady Mary’s wedding taking pride of place among the latter. They were determined to marry as soon as he was well enough to walk down the aisle and, since Dr. Clarkson was unable to shed much light on when that might be, were in the absurd situation of trying to plan a wedding when they didn’t know when it was going to happen.

“And what about you?” Peter asked. “Have you and Mr. Bates set a date yet?”

Anna pressed her lips together. “There’s been a….” She swallowed hard. 

“Don’t tell me he’s thrown you over,” Peter said. Thomas could almost see him queuing up the _he’s a cad who doesn’t deserve you_ speech. Thomas had heard that one so many times he ought to have had it memorized. 

“No, nothing like that,” Anna said hastily. “But we’ve found out why the police keep asking him questions, and why they haven’t ruled Vera’s death a suicide.” 

“Why?” Thomas asked.

“She wrote a letter,” Anna explained. “Just before Mr. Bates went down to see her the final time. She wrote about how angry he was when he telephoned to arrange for them to meet.”

Peter frowned. “And?”

Anna looked down at her hands. “And that she... feared for her life.”

It took Thomas a moment to see it. “That bloody bitch,” he said—with an unworthy but undeniable crumb of admiration. 

Peter—sweet, lovely Peter—looked between the two of them in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

“She framed him,” Thomas said, lighting a cigarette. “For her own suicide.” 

“Really?” Peter asked. “Are you sure it isn’t….” He shook his head, apparently unable to come up with something else it could be.

“She said she’d ruin him if it was the last thing she ever did,” Anna said. 

“And that’s precisely what she did,” Thomas finished. “What are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “The police showed his lawyer the letter. It isn’t clear why, but the lawyer says it might be that they hope to scare him into doing something that will help to build a case against him. So we really don’t dare do anything, in case it’s twisted to look like the final bit of evidence that they need.”

Thomas knew that one very well: if you were already presumed guilty, nothing you did could look innocent. 

Peter didn’t, though. “Surely the lawyer has told them that she had no way of preventing the divorce,” he pointed out. “Doesn’t that do away with his motive?”

Anna sighed. “His mother died recently—well, not so recently, now. Early in the war. She left some money, and her house in London is in a neighborhood which is becoming fashionable. Since he inherited it well before the divorce proceedings were underway, her lawyer can argue that she’s entitled to some of it. Maybe even half. I’d have given her all of it if that’s what it took to get rid of her—we both would—but the police don’t believe that.”

“Oh,” Peter said. 

Anna went on, “Part of the trouble is that he began really pressing for the divorce just after his mother died. It was because he thought the money would help to persuade her—he was sending her part of his wages, you know, and he thought—we both thought—that she might be more willing to give that up if she could get a significant sum settled on her all at once. But the _police_ think it was me that wanted it. They said it made sense of why a pretty young woman would want to marry an old cripple, if it would get me out of service and set up in a comfortable home. I tried to explain that it wasn’t like that, but they wouldn’t listen.”

Thomas missed the significance of this, but Peter didn’t. “They questioned you?”

She nodded. “Just once, so far.”

Now that Peter had pointed it out, that…really didn’t sound good. “When was that?” Thomas asked. 

“Last week,” Anna said. 

It sounded, in fact, as though they were closing in. “This lawyer…is it the one who was handling the divorce?”

Anna nodded.

“He needs one with experience in….” Thomas couldn’t quite bring himself to say _capital cases_. “This kind of thing. The bloke he’s got might be able to recommend someone, or Mr. Matthew. Or his lordship’s legal man. Pull all the strings you’ve got, call in every favor you’re owed, to find somebody good, and get him to take the case.” 

“Won’t that look suspicious?” Anna asked. 

“It’ll look like he sees which way the wind is blowing and he’s not an idiot,” Thomas said bluntly. “They’ve as good as told him that he’s the chief suspect in a murder. At this point, acting like he _doesn’t know it_ might be even more suspicious than acting like he does. Nobody’s _that_ innocent, unless they’ve got something to hide.” 

Anna, her face very pale, twisted her hands in front of her. 

“Has he told them about the perjury?” If he hadn’t, then he _did_ have something to hide. 

She shook her head. “Do you think he should?”

At this point, it might be too late. “He should ask his new lawyer that question.” 

Anna looked over at Peter. “Is he….” She trailed off. “I mean, do you….”

Peter, apparently, was able to figure out what she was trying to say. “We don’t know anyone who’s been suspected of murder,” he said. “Other things, though. This kind of…circling around is…usually where gentlemen of our sort hastily arrange a trip to France, or some other country under the Napoleonic Code.”

“Bates shouldn’t do that,” Thomas added, before Anna could get any ideas. The point was to go to a country where certain offenses were not recognized as criminal, and there was no place where that was true of murder. “It’s an admission of guilt; they just usually don’t bother going after them for…our sort of thing. He’s got no choice but to stand and fight.”

“I see,” Anna said faintly. Peter poured her another cup of tea. She wrapped her hands around it, saying, “I’ve put a damper on your homecoming.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Peter told her.

They left unsaid that she had plenty else to worry about. 

She left not long after that—the dressing gong would be going any minute, and, murder case or not, she still had to dress the young ladies—and Thomas and Peter set about unpacking Mrs. Patmore’s basket and fixing a simple supper of eggs and toast. Peter was a bit subdued, but Thomas felt—guiltily—a bit lighter. 

He’d known _something_ was going to go wrong. Now it had, and it wasn’t happening to _them_. 

The next few days passed quietly. Thomas worked on the cars, and drove various members of the family hither and yon. Peter got the kitchen set up to his liking, and turned out meals of increasing complexity. Thomas chafed a bit at being cut off from the gossip in the servants’ hall, but Anna took it upon herself to deliver most of the family’s requests for the motor, and filled him in on the essentials then. 

She treaded lightly around the topic of Bates’s legal troubles—that Mr. Matthew had been helpful on the subject of criminal lawyers was about the most she said—and excessively voluble on the subject of Lady Mary and Mr. Matthew’s wedding plans. Thomas was waiting rather anxiously for some hint of when Lady _Sybil’s_ wedding plans would be dropped, like a high-explosive shell, into their lives, but Anna didn’t say much about that, either, except that Branson had been spotted in the village—he was staying at the pub, apparently—and people were starting to wonder why he was hanging about. 

Branson himself turned up one afternoon, on the excuse of going over the maintenance logs for the motors with Thomas. He would have been insulted, except that it was transparent that Branson was actually hoping to bump into Lady Sybil. He might still have _acted_ insulted, except that Peter happened to be there at the time.

“Funnily enough,” Thomas said, when Branson started repeating himself on the subject of when it would be time to re-charge the batteries in the touring car, “she doesn’t hang about the garage much now. Or at all, as far as I’ve noticed.” She hadn’t even stopped by to cadge a cigarette, which Thomas was a little surprised about. 

Branson sighed. “Am I that obvious?”

“Yes.” 

After giving him a dirty look, Branson said, “Can you get a message to her?”

“If it can go through Anna, I can get it to her by dinner time,” Thomas said. “Otherwise it’ll have to wait until she wants to be driven somewhere.”

After a moment’s thought, Branson said, “Just ask Anna to let her know that I’ve got news.” 

“All right.” 

Thomas was fairly sure that his tone had conveyed absolutely no interest in hearing what the news was—because he felt none—but Branson was apparently bursting to tell someone. “I’ve gotten a job,” he said. “That’s one of the things—besides _you_ —that we’ve been waiting for. But it’s all arranged now.”

“Congratulations,” Peter said. “What sort of job?”

“it’s on a paper,” Branson said. “In Dublin.”

Thomas didn’t know that Branson knew anything about printing. “Doing what?”

Branson looked a little sheepish. “Writing.” 

Well, wasn’t he just dipped in shit? Marrying Lady Sybil, and now he was going to be _middle class_. “Oh,” Thomas said flatly.

“How exciting,” Peter added. 

“It’s a Free Irish paper,” Branson explained. “I sent them a letter, after the Easter Rising, and they printed it. I sent a few more, and they liked what I had to say, so they asked me to write a proper article. I’ve done a few now, and when I saw they were looking for a reporter….” He shrugged. “I thought they might laugh themselves sick when they got my application, but I suppose they thought it was more important to have someone with the right opinions than experience in journalism.”

“I’m sure you’ll do well,” Peter said. 

“I hope so,” Branson admitted. “The paper’s on a shoestring budget—I could make a better wage as a garage mechanic—but I want her to be able to hold her head up when she tells people what I do for a living.” 

“Oi,” Thomas said. 

“He means people of her class,” Peter told him. “Didn’t you?”

“Exactly,” Branson said, with a grateful nod. “She says she wouldn’t be ashamed to be the wife of a garage mechanic, but she likes this better; I know she does. I might pick up some repair work to help with the money, but she can _tell_ people I’m a journalist.” 

“I expect you’ve got a knack for it,” Peter said encouragingly. “Or they wouldn’t have shown an interest in the first place.”

After a few more remarks on that theme, he left, reminding Thomas to, “Just say I’ve got news—I want to tell her the rest myself.”

Thomas duly passed the message to Anna, who received it without a sign of curiosity as to its import, and the next day, Lady Sybil did, in fact, turn up at the garage. 

Or perhaps it was Nurse Crawley, because the first thing she said was, “I’m sorry we haven’t had a chance to talk properly since you’ve been back.” 

The only time they’d talked at all was when he’d driven her and Lady Mary to pay some calls; she’d said that he looked smart in his new uniform, and he’d said, “Thank you, my lady.”

“I expect you’ve been busy,” he said tactfully. “Am I taking you down to the village?”

She blushed. “I’ve just been. That was one of the things I wanted to talk to you about. We’re going to…announce things, tonight.”

Thomas felt a bit cold. “I see.” It was all very well to say that his lordship wasn’t the sort to take his anger out on the servants, but it wasn’t completely out of the question that he might catch on to the fact that Thomas had been an active participant in the conspiracy. 

“It has been long enough, hasn’t it?” she asked anxiously.

“I think so.” If it wasn’t, a few more days weren’t going to make a difference.

She spoke a bit about Branson’s newspaper job, making it sound a bit grander than Branson had. “I think that’ll help, don’t you?”

Thomas hesitated. 

“Sergeant,” she added. 

“Maybe once they scrape your lord father off the ceiling,” he said. “Not to mention carrying Carson out of the house feet-first.”

She looked crestfallen. “You really think it’ll be that bad?”

Obviously. “I’d give decent odds on their coming round once they realize there’s nothing they can do to stop it,” he said. “But the idea is going to take some getting used to, and no mistake.”

She took a deep breath, and squared her shoulders. “There _isn’t_ anything they can do to stop it,” she said—reminding herself, Thomas thought. “I’m twenty-one, and don’t need Papa’s permission to marry. All he can do is take away my marriage portion, and I don’t care about that.”

Thomas hesitated again.

“I don’t,” she said. 

“Look, have you spoken to…Anna, or anyone, about that side of things?”

“Mary’s given me an earful about it,” she said ruefully.

Lady Mary didn’t know, either. “It’s a lot easier not to care about money when you’ve got enough of it. You’ve never had to miss a meal, or do without a fire on a cold day, or…decide what to do when you’ve got two or three kids who need coats and you only have money for one.” 

She started to protest, and he added, “I’m not saying that _will_ happen. Branson’s got a bit put by, and he’s got good prospects—there’s a decent wage in garage-work if journalism doesn’t work out. Chances are, you’ll be comfortable—not like up there.” He gestured in the direction of the house. “But comfortable by regular people’s standards. I’m sure you’ve thought about what that’ll be like. Living in a small house, doing your own cooking, not having servants. Maybe a scrubwoman a few days a week if you’re lucky.”

“I have,” she said. “I’m ready for all of that.”

“I know,” he said. “But…things go wrong, all the time. You know that—things go wrong for your lot, too. The difference is, when you’re working class, it only takes a couple of blows in a row to knock you off your feet. And it can take a long time to get back up, if there’s nobody to give you a hand.” 

She swallowed hard. 

“I’m not trying to frighten you out of it,” Thomas added. “I just…wanted to make sure you know what you’re getting into. What’s his family think of it?”

“They’re…starting to come round,” she said. 

“Good.” He nodded, and lit a cigarette, offering her the case. She took one, and he lit it for her. “They’re not too badly off, I think—by our lot’s standards,” he added. “If things go south for you, they’ll be able to help. His uncle with the garage, for instance—there’s probably a job there for him if he needs it badly enough. But my point is, working class people don’t _get_ to not care about money. Not if you care about eating food and sleeping indoors.” 

She took a slow pull from her cigarette. “I hadn’t quite thought of it like that,” she admitted. 

“Why would you have? Up until now, you’ve only ever thought about money when you wanted something extra. Food and coal just…appear, don’t they?”

She huffed a little. “You make me sound awfully naïve.”

“We’ve all got our blind spots,” Thomas said. “You know, our first evening back, Peter and I realized we’d have to cook our own dinner, but we didn’t think of going to the shops, to get something to cook, until after they’d shut?”

She giggled. “What did you do?”

“Mrs. Patmore guessed we’d make that mistake, and sent a few things over,” Thomas admitted. “Which goes back to what I was saying about having somebody to give you a hand up. It’s not a bad life, if you’ve got that.” He took a drag from his cigarette. “I suppose what I’m _really_ saying, is that while his lordship is hitting the ceiling, don’t burn your bridges. You’re not going to come crawling back because you’re tired of not having somebody to brush your hair for you or of not getting half a dozen new dresses a year; you’re stronger than that, but there may come a time when you need them.”

She looked skeptical, and he hurried on. “If Branson gets hurt and can’t work, say, or you’ve got a child who deserves more education than you can afford. Don’t say or do anything that’ll make asking for help even harder than it already will be.” He thought of an incident or two—including the confrontation with Carson that she had witnessed part of—and added, “That’s advice I could’ve stood to take a few times myself.” He was lucky, and he knew it, that he hadn’t burned every bridge he had. 

“I’ll keep it in mind,” she promised. Now she hesitated. “I’ll miss you, you know. You’re the only person who speaks to me like this.”

“Outrageously impertinently, you mean? I’d have thought Branson had that covered.”

“It isn’t quite the same,” she laughed. “No, like…I don’t know. Like my being a _Lady_ is something we can put to one side, without pretending it doesn’t matter at all.” 

Now that was a thing Thomas hadn’t quite thought of like that. But he supposed he had a lot of practice in that sort of thing—just with _gentlemen_ , rather than ladies. “I’ll write to you if you like,” he said. “Keep you up to date on all the Downton gossip.” As much of it as he was hearing these days, at any rate, which ought to be enough for Nurse Crawley.

“I’d like that,” she said. “And if you and Peter ever find yourselves in Dublin, you should come round for tea.”

It didn’t seem likely that they would—unless he was driving some of the family there to see her, in which case he’d _not_ be going round for tea—but he appreciated the invitation, just the same. 

The next day, Thomas felt his disconnection from the Downton grapevine even more acutely. His orders for the day included ferrying the Dowager and Mrs. Crawley to the house for dinner, but he had no way of knowing whether that would put a spike in Branson and Nurse Crawley’s plans, or not. If anything unusual was happening around dinner time, it did not _literally_ shake Downton on its foundations, so Thomas knew nothing of it. When the time came for him to drive the two ladies back to the village, Carson’s fixed expression as he handed them into the car was suggestive, but not conclusive. As was the way that, during the short drive, they spoke determinedly of the weather and nothing else. 

Usually, they took the opportunity to sling a few barbs at one another. 

#

“I’ll be at the Grantham Arms, in the village, until Lady Sybil is ready to make her departure,” Mr. Branson said, his voice carefully pleasant. 

Mr. Carson, having proclaimed a moment ago that he wouldn’t “disgrace himself by discussing the topic,” limited his response to harrumphing, and turning a sort of puce shade. Anna really did wonder if he was going to make himself ill. 

“I bid you all a good day,” Branson added, and left. 

As soon as his footsteps had receded, Jane said, “Is it really tru—”

“Please!” Carson nearly shouted. “I have asked for silence, and silence I will have.”

They all gave it to him. On this particular occasion, Anna was relieved that Thomas wasn’t with them—she doubted _he’d_ have kept silent. 

Anna had learned Lady Sybil’s news last night—Lady Sybil had told her about it, when Anna was undressing her—but Mr. Carson had managed to keep it a secret from the rest of the servants, until Branson had turned up in the servants’ hall and announced it himself. An ill-timed announcement, perhaps, but Anna was relieved to no longer be the only one downstairs—apart from Mr. Carson—who knew.

After what had to have been the quietest luncheon in the history of the Downton servants’ hall, Anna made some excuse to slip outside, and hurried over to the garage. It was empty—apart from the cars—so she went across to the cottage and knocked on the door.

Mr. Fitzroy answered it. “Hullo,” he said. “Come in—we’re just having lunch.”

“Oh,” she said. Of course they were. “I don’t mean to interrupt.”

“As long as you don’t mind us eating in front of you,” he said, with one of his strange-looking shrugs. “Has something happened?”

She hesitated. “Not with Mr. Bates, if that’s what you mean.” 

“Ah,” he said, ushering her down the passage toward the kitchen. “It’ll be the other thing, then.”

Thomas glanced up from his sandwich when she entered. “What?” he said warily.

With a glance at Mr. Fitzroy, she said, “I think you may already know. Mr. Branson’s just told us all that he and Lady Sybil are going to be married.” 

Swallowing, Thomas asked, “How’d they take it, upstairs?”

“His lordship was furious,” she said, taking the seat that Mr. Fitzroy offered to her. “Lady Sybil said he accused Mr. Branson of seducing her, and tried to forbid it, and said she was throwing away her life.” Mr. Fitzroy fetched a teacup and poured her some. “I’m not sure about her ladyship,” she continued. Lady Sybil had mentioned an almost-funny moment where her ladyship had gotten the—fortunately wrong—impression that Lady Sybil and Mr. Branson were planning to live in sin. Anna supposed that may even have helped a bit, by putting in her Ladyship’s mind how it could have been worse. “But she says the Dowager took it better than she expected.”

“I think she’s got a Past,” Thomas noted. “The Dowager, I mean. I’ve heard a hint or two.”

Anna had, too. Waiting at table was surprisingly informative. Returning to the subject of Lady Sybil, she said, “They’re all trying to talk her out of it, of course, but if you ask me, her mind’s made up.”

Thomas, who had just taken a bite, nodded. 

Mr. Fitzroy said, “She does seem a strong-minded young lady.”

Anna, unsure how much they already knew, shared a few more details—their plans to live in Dublin, Mr. Branson’s job on a newspaper. Thomas finished his lunch with a single-mindedness she’d never seen in him—not directed at food, at least—and bolted, muttering something about lots of work to do. 

Only halfway through his own lunch, Mr. Fitzroy watched him go with a slight frown. 

“What’s gotten into him?” Anna asked.

“I’m not sure. He and Nurse Crawley had a longish talk yesterday; I know that.”

“I always forget that he’s friends with Lady Sybil,” Anna admitted. _Forget_ wasn’t quite the word for it—it was just something she had trouble holding in her mind.

“He’s friends with Nurse Crawley,” Mr. Fitzroy corrected with a smile. “The distinction is a vital one—to him, at least.”

“I don’t _think_ it is to her,” Anna said, with a bit of uncertainty. From what she had gathered, Lady Sybil’s friendship with Thomas was… _franker_ , than the one she and Anna shared, which was always tempered by the difference in their status.

“Perhaps not, but she understands it,” Mr. Fitzroy said. He smiled fondly as he went on, “When they’re going to really talk, beyond the _yes, my lady_ , _no, my lady_ business, she calls him Sergeant, and he calls her Nurse Crawley. It’s sort of adorable.”

Anna knew by now that Mr. Fitzroy would find nearly anything Thomas did to be adorable, but on this, she could see his point. “He and Mr. Carson had an actual _row_ over Mr. Carson calling him Thomas instead of Sergeant Barrow. His lordship had to intervene.”

“That sort of thing’s important to him,” Mr. Fitzroy said. “He likes to know where he stands, with people.”

“I hadn’t thought of it like that,” Anna admitted. “I thought it was just that he’s a snob.”

“Well, there’s that, too,” Mr. Fitzroy said. 

He was about finished with his lunch then, and after helping him clear the table, Anna went looking for Thomas. The reminder of his and Lady Sybil’s friendship had given her an idea of what might be bothering him.

When she found him in the garage, he was under the bonnet of the larger car, doing something with a wrench. He glanced up at her and made a sound that might have passed for a greeting among cave-dwelling ape-men, then returned his attention to his work. 

Anna perched on the high stool that stood near the workbench—the one where Mr. Fitzroy often sat, when he was in the garage. She’d not been invited to sit, but she knew from experience that she’d not have been even if Thomas was in a far better mood than he was now. “I’ll be sorry to see Lady Sybil go,” she began. “Even though I know it’s what she wants. I suppose we all will.”

Thomas glanced over at her. “It’ll be even duller around here without her, that’s for sure.”

So that wasn’t it. If the prospect of missing Lady Sybil was the cause of his surliness, he’d have said something like, _What difference will it make to the likes of us? One less of them to wait on and drive about._

She tried another possibility. “It’s a bit of a surprise, Mr. Branson getting a job on a paper. I didn’t know he was a writer.” Jealousy was always a good bet when it came to Thomas. It might smart a bit to see Mr. Branson move on from the trade that Thomas had so recently taken up.

“It’s not exactly the London _Times_ ,” Thomas pointed out. “Or even the Dublin _Times_. Just some Irish Republican rag.” His voice grew a bit muffled as he leaned under the motor’s bonnet again. “He only applied for it because he thought them upstairs might find it a bit easier to swallow if Nurse Crawley can say he’s a professional instead of a tradesman.” 

Anna wondered a bit how Thomas knew so much about it—but then, he had spent a lot of time with Mr. Branson before he’d gone on his course. In any case, he sounded no more than averagely envious—by his standards—of Mr. Branson’s good fortune. “Lady Sybil mentioned that as well—that it would sound better for the Dowager Countess.” 

Seemingly finished with whatever he was doing to the car’s innards, Thomas circled round it, lighting a cigarette. “Look,” he said. “She didn’t want me telling anyone about her plans. And it’s not like she told me, really. It just sort of…got obvious. When we were working on this.” He gestured at the motor, apparently meaning his job as chauffeur. “I couldn’t say anything, because she was the one convincing his lordship to let me have the job.” 

Now Anna understood—or thought she did. Glancing over her shoulder for any eavesdroppers, she said, “I don’t think I’d have turned them in, either, if I had known in advance. I do wonder if she’s doing the right thing, but it’s her decision who she wants to marry.” If they’d been _carrying on_ , Anna might have chosen differently, but Lady Sybil had assured her that nothing like that was taking place, and there was nothing in the state of her clothing to suggest otherwise. 

“You knew about the—that there was something between them,” Thomas said. His tone was faintly accusatory, which really didn’t make much sense—they’d spoken about it, a time or two, so of course she knew. “Same as I did. And Lady Mary.”

“Yes,” she agreed. 

“Just don’t go getting any ideas about telling them I knew,” he said. “When you knew almost as much as I did.”

Anna stared at him. Mr. Bates had joked about Thomas reverting to his old, prickly ways, but _this_ , the Thomas who expected betrayal at every turn, and collected blackmail material as a shield against it, she hadn’t seen since before the war. Or even longer than that. Since before Kew Gardens. Since the time he’d tried to blackmail her into chaperoning his and Mr. Fitzroy’s date. 

Back then, she remembered, she hadn’t known whether to slap him or feel sorry for him. 

Now, she did. “Why in heaven’s name would I tell them?” she asked. 

“I didn’t say you _were_ going to,” he retorted. “Just if you were thinking about it.”

“Well, I wasn’t,” she said, with a hint of exasperation. 

Perhaps more than a hint. With a look of genuine alarm, he said, “ _Wasn’t_?

It took her a moment to catch up. “And I’m not now, either.”

He squared his shoulders and raised his chin in that way that reminded her of a cat that had just been caught falling off a chair, or doing something similarly inelegant, and was now attempting to convey that it had done so on purpose, perhaps as an example to less able cats. “You’d best not be,” he muttered. “I haven’t even done anything else.”

Now it was Anna’s turn to seize on a single, suggestive word. “ _Else_? What have you already done?”

Thomas took a pull from his cigarette and squinted at her. “Not telling you about Nurse Crawley running off with the chauffeur?”

Why would she expect him to tell her that? She began to ask exactly that, but only got as far as “Why would—” before the answer struck her like a blow. They’d first become friends around the time of his falling-out with Miss O’Brien—a rupture that had resulted from Thomas’s refusal to tell her what had really happened between Lady Mary and the Turkish gentleman. 

She’d be a little insulted, that anyone would think she’d act as Miss O’Brien did, except that it was Thomas. He knew a million signs that someone was about to do something awful, but he had no idea whatsoever of how to tell if someone _wasn’t_. “I’m not Miss O’Brien,” she said. “I wouldn’t plot revenge against a friend because they didn’t tell me something that was none of my business to begin with.”

Thomas did the offended-cat maneuver again, and echoed his earlier sentiment. “I didn’t say you would.”

“If you ask me, it’s a despicable thing to do,” she added. Miss O’Brien’s turning her back on him may have worked out for the best—Anna fancied herself a better friend than Miss O’Brien could ever be—but he hadn’t deserved it. She wondered if anyone had ever told him so. 

#

Thomas was just finishing replacing the batteries in the touring car, after testing their specific gravity, when Mrs. Hughes turned up. “Mr. Barrow?” she called.

He circled round the car, wiping his hands on a rag. She looked worried. “Yes?”

“Mr. Carson’s been taken ill,” she explained. 

Thomas glanced at the cars. “Shall I go for Dr. Clarkson?” The touring car needed a few more minutes’ work before it would be ready to drive, but if there was a hurry, he could take the landaulet. 

“I’ve telephoned him,” she said. “He has several other serious cases, and I don’t think Mr. Carson is too terribly ill, so he said he’d come when he has time.”

All right, then. Thomas waited to hear what any of this had to do with him. 

“But he suggested that you might take a look, and telephone again if you think it’s more urgent.”

Oh, Carson was going to _love_ that. “Of course,” he said. “Let me just finish what I’m doing here, and get tidied up a bit.” Not to mention steel himself for the ordeal. “Twenty minutes or so?”

She nodded. “Thank you.” 

Once he’d finished with the batteries, Thomas popped back over to the cottage to shed his coverall and put on a tie—he was wearing one of his own suits under the coverall, as part of an experiment into whether he could get away with forgoing the wretched chauffeur’s uniform when he wasn’t expecting to actually drive the family anywhere. 

Peter walked up to the house with him—reasonably enough, if anyone asked, since he had as much medical training as Thomas did, though Thomas suspected his real purpose was a visit with the indoor staff. And, indeed, by the time Thomas had rounded up a thermometer, Peter was settled in the servants’ hall, talking to Daisy as she laid the tea.

Well, if Carson was ill in bed, he could hardly take issue with it.

Thomas wondered, as he climbed the stairs, if he was actually going to have to _wake Carson up_ , but fortunately, his answering “ _What?”_ when Thomas knocked on the door sounded thoroughly irritated, but not at all sleepy. 

Letting himself into the room, Thomas explained, “Major—Dr. Clarkson’s asked me to take a look at you.”

Carson, sitting up in bed, harrumphed. 

“He’s a bit busy today,” Thomas added. “So he wanted me to give him an idea of the urgency of the case.”

“I’m fine,” Carson said. 

He didn’t look too bad—a little flushed, but that was about it. Thomas stuck the thermometer in his mouth and made a bit of a production of taking his pulse—not that it was terribly relevant in a case of suspected Spanish flu, at least not from what the Wardmaster had said, but it gave Thomas something to do while he was waiting for the thermometer reading. 

It also got him close enough to listen to Carson’s breathing, which might be just a hair labored—though it was impossible to tell whether that was the result of illness or huffiness at having Thomas in his bedroom. Throughout the process, Carson looked straight ahead, as though if he didn’t look directly at Thomas, this would not be happening.

The thermometer showed only a slight fever, a fact which Thomas duly reported to Carson. “Nothing too alarming. Are you feeling dizzy at all, or confused?”

“No,” Carson said grudgingly. 

“Headache?”

“No.”

“Fatigue?”

“No.”

He also denied muscle aches, nausea, nasal congestion, and sore throat. “If you haven’t got any symptoms at all, I’m not entirely sure why Mrs. Hughes sent you to bed,” Thomas pointed out. 

Carson found something fascinating to look at on the wall opposite where Thomas was sitting. “There was a bit of dizziness upon standing.” He bit off every word. “And some headache, and tiredness.”

“Thank you,” Thomas said, and wished he had a proper medical chart upon which to write this information. “Dr. Clarkson’ll be along when he can. Try to rest.”

Back in the servants’ hall, he found Peter still talking to Mrs. Hughes. “—we can do to help,” he was saying. “Thomas—how’s the patient?”

“I expect he’ll live,” Thomas said, and—thinking of Bates’s situation—did not add _unfortunately_. Writing down Carson’s temperature and pulse, he added, “We ought to check on him again in a couple of hours, if Dr. Clarkson hasn’t come by then. From what I’ve heard, it can progress quickly.”

“Thank you,” Mrs. Hughes said, and Thomas realized that he had just _volunteered_ to check on Carson again in a couple of hours. Damn. “Will you two stay for tea?”

Thomas glanced at Peter, who gave a slightly shrug, and raised an eyebrow. Thomas shrugged back, and Peter said, “We will, if it isn’t an imposition.”

“Not at all,” Mrs. Hughes said. Daisy was already getting down two more plates. 

Thomas sat down next to Peter. “What have you found out?”

“They’ve sent for someone called Mr. Molesley to wait at table,” Peter said. 

“Mrs. Crawley’s butler,” Thomas said. “If you can call him a butler, when it’s just him, a cook-housekeeper, and a daily woman.”

“If he’s that unimpressive, I wonder why she didn’t ask us, to begin with?” Peter said. 

_Well, he does have two arms_. There was absolutely no way Thomas could say that, so he didn’t. “I expect it’ll be a bit of a thrill for him, waiting at table in a proper house.” 

Though Thomas would not have admitted it out loud under any circumstances, it was a bit nice being back in the servants’ hall. Especially without Carson glaring at them from the head of the table. The best part of it, though, was watching the way Peter came alive, following the conversation intently, and adding a few sparkling anecdotes about the trials of setting up housekeeping when you’d never done it before. 

Thomas didn’t want to be the one to drag them back to their cottage—cozy, yes, but perhaps a bit lonely, for Peter—and no one took it upon themselves to toss them out, so they ended up staying until it was time for Thomas to go and change into his jodhpurs and knee-boots to fetch the Dowager and Mrs. Crawley from the village. 

He slipped out, while Peter was busy having a recipe explained to him by Mrs. Patmore. 

He went to Crawley House first—the Dowager Countess, after much back-and-forthing on the subject, had concluded that, if she _must_ be kept waiting while the widow of a middle-class doctor made herself ready, it was less _infra dig_ to do so in her own house than in the car on the street—and as he opened the car door for Mrs. Crawley, she said, “I expect Lady Sybil’s news has made it through the house by now.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Thomas agreed, and closed the door after her.

Once he was back in the driver’s seat, she continued, “I have to admit, I wasn’t completely surprised. She’d made a number of, shall we say, _portentous_ remarks about not wanting to go back to the life she had before the war.” 

Was she trying to find out how much _he’d_ known? Thomas had thought about the possibility that his lordship might have questions on the subject, but he hadn’t anticipated it from Mrs. Crawley—although, as Ward-Sister, she _had_ been responsible for the VADs’ conduct and moral well-being. It could easily be argued that Thomas—or rather, Sergeant Barrow—ought to have reported Nurse Crawley to her. “Yes, ma’am,” he said again. “I thought she meant she was hoping to find a way to continue nursing.”

“She is,” Mrs. Crawley said brightly. “She plans to find a nursing job in Dublin, after the wedding.”

Thomas knew that, but said “Is she, my lady? I’m glad to hear it.”

“She has a real talent for the work,” Mrs. Crawley said, in a tone of agreement. 

That conversation took them to the Dower House, at which point Thomas was cut out of the conversation. It didn’t matter one bit to Mrs. Crawley that one did not talk to chauffeurs, but it mattered a great deal to the Dowager Countess, and apparently Mrs. Crawley was not, today, in the mood to antagonize her. 

After decanting the ladies at the front door, and putting the car away, Thomas checked the cottage for Peter. Not finding him there, he walked over to the house. Downstairs was the usual bustle of getting ready for the day’s grand production—dinner—but Peter was nowhere to be seen. He wasn’t in the servants’ hall, or the kitchen, or even in the boot room. 

He just might, Thomas thought, be talking to Mrs. Hughes in her sitting room, but then he saw her heading toward him, alone. “Where’s Peter?” he demanded. 

She blinked. “He’s gone up to check on Mr. Carson,” she said. She went on to say something about Peter reminding them that he had hospital training as well, but Thomas didn’t hear it—he was already dashing up the stairs, hoping to get there before Carson had a chance to say anything that would oblige Thomas to beat a man senseless in his sickbed. 

He was a bit out of breath—and hated his knee-boots more than ever—by the time he got to the men’s corridor in the attic. “—sure Mr. Molesley will have everything under control,” he heard Peter say. “Anna’s in the servery with him now, making sure he knows how things are done here.” 

Thomas stepped into the doorway in time to see Carson glower, but he didn’t actually _say_ anything, so Thomas reined in his temper. “How’s the patient?” he asked, aiming for a tone of professional cheer. 

The look Peter shot him suggested he’d missed the mark, by a considerable margin. “About the same. He might feel better if he’d rest instead of fretting about an ordinary family dinner.”

Carson began to expound about the Dowager Countess and Mrs. Crawley, and how “Mr. Molesley won’t know how set a table on the scale we do here.”

“Anna does,” Peter reminded him. “But Thomas will take a look at it, if it’ll make you feel better. Won’t you, Thomas?”

“…Of course,” Thomas said, because he could hardly say anything else. He attempted to convey with his expression that he was agreeing because _Peter_ had asked. Carson’s answering glower suggested he’d hit that one all right. 

In the servery, they found Molesley dithering over the wines. Thomas chased him downstairs for the first course—they’d be about finished with their before-dinner drinks in the library—and, going into the dining room, twitched a couple of glasses and a candelabra into their proper positions. 

Not that _anyone who’d be in the dining room_ would notice the difference.

Downstairs, Mrs. Hughes continued to not chase them out—or even to hint that they ought to leave—so they continued to hang about. Daisy, laying the table for the downstairs dinner, set places for them. 

About midway through the upstairs main course, Jane escorted a pale and wobbly-looking Molesley into the servants’ hall. “He’s taken ill,” she told Mrs. Hughes. “Anna’s taken over serving upstairs.”

“Go and help her,” Mrs. Hughes directed, taking Molesley’s arm and getting him into a chair. 

“What can we do to help?” Peter asked. 

Mrs. Hughes thought for a moment and said, “Look after him. I’ll keep the dinner going.”

Molesley was looking about in a dazed sort of way, as though he weren’t entirely sure why he wasn’t in the dining room anymore. Thomas eyed him skeptically. He didn’t look _ill_ , precisely. More like….

Well. His professional experience of Spanish flu consisted of one possible case—Carson—and hearing the Wardmaster talk about it. He’d best not jump to conclusions. 

When he ran through the same list of questions he’d asked Carson, Molesley confirmed dizziness, confusion, headache, and nausea, and denied chills, muscle aches, nasal congestion, and sore throat. Still, best to do the thing thoroughly—fetching the thermometer, he stuck it in Molesley’s mouth, getting a boozy exhalation in return. 

While he waited for it to read, he got a large glass of water and some bread from the kitchen. Setting these before Molesley, he collected the thermometer, which read dead normal. 

“How bad is it?” Molesley asked, slurring his words slightly.

“Depends,” Thomas said. “How much of it did you drink?”

“What?” Molesley said vaguely. 

“Drink this,” Thomas said, putting the glass in his hand, “and eat that, if you think you can keep it down.” He indicated the bread. Then he sat down, lit a cigarette, and watched Molesley for signs that he was about to spew, with an eye toward getting him into the scullery if it seemed likely. 

Mount Molesley had still refrained from erupting when Anna came back down. “Miss O’Brien,” she said. “Her ladyship’s taken ill, as well. You’d best go up and help put her to bed.”

O’Brien muttered something about what Anna had best do, and went. 

“Do I need to look at her, too?” Thomas asked. It didn’t seem entirely proper.

“Lady Sybil and Mrs. Crawley are looking after her,” Anna said. 

Oh, right; of course. That was much more suitable. “Good.”

A short while later, Thomas was summoned to drive the Dowager Countess home. Mrs. Crawley was planning to stick around until Dr. Clarkson came, so naturally, the doctor’s car passed theirs halfway down the drive. 

By the time Thomas made it back to the servants’ hall, Molesley had dozed off at the table, and Dr. Clarkson—having already examined her ladyship and Carson—was on his way to look at him. “They’ll both need some nursing care for the next few days,” he was telling Mrs. Hughes, “but neither seems too serious.”

“Thank heavens for that,” she said. “Mr. Molesley is just in here.”

They stepped into the room, and everyone—except Molesley—stood up. “Sergeant,” Major Clarkson said, nodding to him. 

“Sir,” Thomas answered, and reported, “No fever or respiratory symptoms, but he complains of dizziness, headache, and nausea.” 

As Dr. Clarkson leaned over Molesley to examine him, he let out a fragrant snore. Clarkson straightened quickly. “Right,” he said. “Mr. Molesley will be fine in the morning. The other two have Spanish flu; he’s just drunk.” 

“I thought that might be the case, sir,” Thomas admitted. 

Dr. Clarkson nodded. “You’ve been looking after Mr. Carson?”

“I’ve been looking in on him,” Thomas agreed, and fetched the sheet of paper where he’d been writing down his temperature and pulse.

Studying the makeshift chart, Dr. Clarkson nodded. “Very thorough. You’ve been taking his temperature every two hours?”

“Yes, sir.” That was about the most often they ever did it in the hospital. “Better safe than sorry, I thought. Especially since we had only the one patient to worry about.”

“This disease can take sudden turns,” the doctor agreed. “But I shouldn’t be surprised if you have more cases over the next few days—once Spanish flu gets into a house, it spreads. If you get busier, taking vitals every four hours will suffice for a mild case.” 

“Yes, sir,” Thomas said. He wondered if that meant he had to examine Carson in the middle of the night. The prospect of getting out of bed and trekking over to the house was only slightly more appealing than that of sleeping in his old room—away from Peter—to avoid the chilly night walk. “What about overnight?”

“It’s probably more important for him to rest than to wake up him to take his temperature, but it would be best if someone could look in on him,” Dr. Clarkson said.

“I’ll do that,” Bates volunteered. “I can fetch Mr. Barrow from his cottage if there’s any cause for concern.”

“Very good.” Dr. Clarkson nodded. “Miss O’Brien will be doing the same for her ladyship, and fetching Nurse Crawley if _she_ has cause for concern,” he added. “Both of you know how to treat a fever and what signs to look for to tell if a patient’s condition is worsening.” 

He went on to give Thomas a few more instructions about Spanish flu—mostly things that Thomas had already heard from the Wardmaster, and something about giving the patients cinnamon in warm milk if their condition worsened, which the Wardmaster had said was “about as useful as tits on a fucking bull, but it gives you something to do.” 

#

At her age, Mrs. Hughes supposed she had little to worry about, but it still felt strange to be going into a man’s bedroom at night. The much-delayed servants’ hall dinner had finally finished, and she’d come up to collect the tray that she’d sent up with one of the hall-boys. She half-hoped that Mr. Carson would be asleep—though seeing him asleep would be its own sort of awkwardness—but he was sitting up, paging through a book.

When she entered, he put it aside and demanded a report on how the dinner had gone. 

“Well enough for all practical purposes,” she said. In truth, she hadn’t paid much attention, but surely her ladyship’s illness would have served as a distraction from any lapses resulting from Mr. Molesley’s state of inebriation. “And we’ll manage perfectly well tomorrow, too, and the next day, and on until you’re fully recovered and ready to go back on duty,” she added, before he could start making noises about being back on his feet tomorrow. He’d tried that when Dr. Clarkson had told him that he’d need to rest for at least several days, and she wanted to make clear that she’d have no more truck with it than the doctor had. 

He grumbled a bit more, and said, “I suppose Mr. Molesley could be asked to stay on until I’m well.”

“I don’t think his liver could stand it,” Mrs. Hughes said, and before Mr. Carson could ask what she meant by that, she added, “Mr. Barrow and Mr. Fitzroy have offered their services, for the duration of the emergency.” It had been Mr. Fitzroy doing the offering, for both of them, but it was plain enough that Thomas would do anything Mr. Fitzroy wanted him to do. “I daresay we’ll be able to manage.”

“Hmph!” Mr. Carson shook his head. “ _Them_.” 

“I’m well aware of your quarrel with Mr. Barrow,” she said, “but Mr. Fitzroy seems a perfectly pleasant chap.” Not to mention a calming influence on Thomas.

“Perhaps,” Mr. Carson allowed. “Except that he has no good reason whatsoever for being here. I can’t imagine why his lordship chooses to permit it.”

“You could ask him,” Mrs. Hughes pointed out, and got a baleful look in return. “You were concerned for him when he was away,” she added. Not _very_ concerned, perhaps, but he’d asked after him when she or Anna received a letter from him, and during the long silence that had followed the field postcard notifying them of his injury, he’d unbent enough to say that he hoped Thomas wasn’t too badly hurt. “And when he was first notified that Mr. Fitzroy was presumed dead.”

They’d all been a bit taken aback by how Thomas had been knocked flat by his grief, and while Mr. Carson’s main concern had been making sure that Thomas didn’t make a scene, he’d at least recognized the need to do so in a way that didn’t add to the poor boy’s burdens. 

“Yes, well,” Mr. Carson said. “He is a great deal easier to sympathize with in the abstract.” He cleared his throat. “The _modern_ thinking, on these things, is that men…like that, are made so through some accident of nature, which is no fault of their own.” 

“I didn’t think you were much of one for modern thinking,” Mrs. Hughes noted.

“Hmph. There may be something in it, in this matter. I can’t imagine how any man would _choose_ to be…like that. Not even Thomas. No, I can recognize what an affliction it must be,” he said generously. “But the way he shoves it in our faces makes it very hard to feel any pity for him.”

Privately, Mrs. Hughes suspected that Thomas would do even more of what Mr. Carson called _shoving it in their faces_ , if he knew the alternative was being pitied. Aloud, she put it more mildly. “I’m not sure he wants to be pitied.”

“That’s the problem,” said Mr. Carson. “He should. He should recognize that he is _ill_ and be grateful for the tolerance he has found here. Instead, he parades about as though there were nothing wrong with him. And now he’s making a spectacle of himself, play-acting at married life.”

Mrs. Hughes reminded herself that Mr. Carson was, at the moment, ill himself—and that his weakened state probably had something to do with his uncharacteristic frankness on the topic. She decided it was time for some frankness of her own. “If he is ill,” she said, “and there’s no changing it, isn’t it for the best that he makes a life with someone who shares his ‘affliction’?”

“What would be for the best, is if he resigned himself to a celibate life,” Mr. Carson countered. “Plenty of people have. You and I have.”

He said it with a sort of heavy significance that Mrs. Hughes didn’t quite understand. “I haven’t _resigned_ _myself_ to anything,” she said. “I chose this life. I could have married if I had wanted to.” She couldn’t have married _and_ had the career she did, as housekeeper in one of England’s great houses, but she’d made a choice. 

And Thomas and Mr. Fitzroy…well, they’d found a way to make one, too.

#

The next morning, Thomas and Peter reported up to the house after breakfast. Two of the housemaids had woken up ill, and now Mrs. Hughes was willing to accept the help that Peter had so rashly offered the day before. They found themselves not only checking on Carson and the sick maids—the latter, always with Mrs. Hughes or Anna accompanying them, for propriety’s sake—but tending the fires, setting up the dining room for luncheon, accepting deliveries, and a dozen other everyday chores. 

One small mercy was that O’Brien was blessedly absent from downstairs for most of the day, except when she came down demanding ice, or more cool cloths, or warm milk and cinnamon. Thomas wondered a bit at how much effort she was putting into nursing her ladyship. It didn’t seem like the piously devoted, goody-two-shoes act she put on when she wanted something, or when she was afraid she might be losing her hold on Lady Grantham. It was almost…frantic. Like she actually cared.

Thomas began to get an idea of why, when he was taking firewood up to the family bedrooms. A maid came out of her bedroom, carrying a bundle of sheets that had been soaked through with fever-sweat, and when he was laying the fire in his lordship’s dressing room, he could hear her ladyship wheezing, although the connecting door was shut. 

He happened to leave the dressing room at the same time as Nurse Crawley—definitely not Lady Sybil,as she was in uniform—was leaving her ladyship’s room, carrying a basin covered with a cloth. “Would you like me to take that down to the sinkroom, Nurse?” he asked. 

“Thank you,” she said, handing it over. “And could you bring up a clean one?”

Unfortunately, since the sinkroom had turned back into the scullery, there was no ready supply of basins—nor any disgraced orderlies to do the washing up. Thomas left the basin on the draining board, making a mental note to come back and wash it later, and scouted a suitable replacement receptacle from the kitchen. 

Back upstairs, he knocked on the door and took it in—earning a glare from O’Brien. Nurse Crawley passed her the basin, then accompanied Thomas back out into the corridor. “She…seems a lot worse off than any of the others,” he said. 

Nurse Crawley nodded. “Dr. Clarkson says the next few hours,” she hesitated, “are critical.”

“Is there anything I can do?” Thomas asked, even though he knew perfectly well that there wasn’t. Aspirin, cool cloths, and cinnamon in milk; those were all they had. 

She shook her head, her eyes downcast. “I can’t help wondering if the…quarrel, the night before last…could have played some part. If the shock weakened her system.”

What the bloody hell was he supposed to say to that? _I’ve never heard of “hearing that your daughter’s about to run off with the chauffeur” as a cause for Spanish flu_ was right out. _Plenty of people are dying who_ didn’t _just get shocking news_ was also no good. Nor was, _Probably not, but I don’t suppose we’ll ever know_. 

That one was a _little_ better than the others, but still not something he could actually say. 

He also wasn’t going to say _I’m sure the news had nothing to do with it_ , because he _wasn’t_ sure. Neither of them could be sure. 

He finally settled on, “I suppose it’s natural to wonder that, in the circumstances.” 

“I worried about _Granny_ having a stroke or something, when we announced it,” she admitted. “When I arranged with Tom to come, I didn’t know she was coming to dinner. But I didn’t think about Mama.”

“You couldn’t have known that she was getting ill,” Thomas pointed out. 

“No,” she agreed. “But still.”

“They say it seems completely random, who gets a serious case,” he added. That was what the Wardmaster had said, anyway. “Sometimes people who are already in hospital when they catch it—they have some other illness, or they’re still recovering from a wound—only have a mild case.”

“That’s true,” Nurse Crawley said, looking slightly encouraged. “A lot of infants and elderly people are getting milder cases, too. Cousin Isobel mentioned that.”

Thomas nodded. “I’m not sure having a weakened system has anything to do with it, really.”

“Perhaps not,” she agreed. 

Her ladyship cried out from the bedroom. Nurse Crawley hurried back inside, and Thomas got back to laying the fires.

He got back downstairs just as Daisy and Mrs. Patmore were bringing the tea in to the servants’ hall. “Isn’t Miss O’Brien coming down?” Daisy asked as she started pouring. 

“We’ll put something aside for her,” Mrs. Patmore said. 

Daisy concentrated intently on pouring the next few cups. Finally, she asked, “Is her ladyship going to die, then?”

Involuntarily, Thomas glanced toward Carson’s empty seat. It was just the sort of question that was sure to provoke a reaction from him. But of course he wasn’t here. 

“We must hope not,” said Mrs. Hughes, gently.

Daisy looked at him, for some reason. “But is she?”

Not for the first time, Thomas wondered why they seemed to think he ought to know these things. It had been the same way when William and Mr. Matthew were missing. “It’s bad,” he said. “Dr. Clarkson is…hoping to see some improvement in the next few hours.” 

The rest of the meal, unsurprisingly, was quiet. Afterwards, Peter went with Mrs. Hughes to take tea to the sick maids, and Thomas went outside to have a smoke. With O’Brien out of the picture, he could have smoked in the servants’ hall, but he figured this way there was a better chance of getting through an entire cigarette without someone wanting him to do something.

When the door opened behind him, he thought even that modest expectation had been foiled, but it was Anna who came out, and took a seat next to him. “All right?” he asked her. 

She nodded, opened her mouth, and closed it again. “Mr. Bates and I are getting married,” she said. 

“I know,” he started to say, but she wasn’t finished.

“On Friday,” she went on. “You see, the lawyer—the new one—agrees with you. What he said was something like, _appearances are consistent with the likelihood that the police are developing a case_ _against him_ , but he meant…what you said. That they’re getting ready to arrest him.”

“All right,” Thomas said slowly. 

“And I decided that, if it does happen, we’re going to face it together, as man and wife.”

If she had asked, Thomas would have said that he thought it was a bad move. True, anything Bates did could be interpreted as evidence of guilt, but some things were a lot easier to interpret that way than others. But she wasn’t asking. “I see. Friday.”

“That’s the day the registrar had available,” she explained. “But with her ladyship so ill, I wonder if we’ll be able to get away.”

So she was asking the same question that Daisy had, really. Only less directly. “I’d say that, by Friday, things…won’t be so uncertain.” She’d either have started to get better, or…not. 

“I suppose not,” she said. “It isn’t what we wanted,” she continued. “Even though it has to be a registry office wedding, we could have had our friends there, and a bit of a party afterwards. But I couldn’t bear it if…and I wouldn’t even have a right to be informed, of what was happening.” 

She didn’t have to explain it to _him_. “Bit late to start claiming you’re brother and sister,” he agreed. 

She laughed, a bit hollowly. “Right. So this is what we’re doing.”

“Maybe it’ll satisfy her vengeful ghost,” Thomas suggested. “Knowing she cheated you out of a proper wedding.”

“Maybe,” Anna agreed. “Probably not, but it would be nice if it did.” 

Almost the moment they went back inside, Peter came down the stairs, and dragged Thomas back out into the courtyard again. Once Thomas had lit a cigarette for him—just the one, since Thomas had just finished one—he said, “Mrs. Hughes was worrying over what they’re going to do about dinner.”

Thomas frowned. “Did you go to Carson’s room?”

“Yes, and it was fine,” Peter said. “He’s too ill to be awful at the moment. I told her we’d be glad to help.”

It took Thomas a moment to realize that he’d gone back to the original subject, of Mrs. Hughes worrying about the dinner. Then it took him another moment to rein in his temper, and a third to not say _Why the bloody hell did you say that_? “You volunteered us to wait at table?”

“Yes,” Peter said, as if there were no glaringly obvious reason why he ought not to have done that. “With Mr. Carson down for the count, they can survive you serving them from the wrong side,” he pointed out. “Especially as there’re no guests. And I can do the wine. You only need one hand for that.”

Thomas had no doubt that _they_ could survive being served from the wrong side. The question was whether _he_ could survive doing it. 

With Peter there, maybe. 

He lit another cigarette, this one for himself. Peter watched him with a sort of patient understanding. It was his _I know you’ll do the right thing, after you’ve thought about all the other options_ face. 

This time, thinking about all of the other options didn’t take very long, because every single one of them started with _disappointing Peter_. He sighed, and took a long drag from his cigarette. Blowing the smoke out slowly, he said, “Guess we’d better find you a livery.”

#

“I was thinking a sort of buffet,” Mrs. Patmore said. “That way, they can go in and out as it suits them.” 

“You won’t mind the extra work?” Mrs. Hughes asked. It was an ideal solution—and not only for the problem of the family being all too likely to be called away from the table by her ladyship’s illness. When Mr. Fitzroy had volunteered himself and Thomas to serve at dinner, there hadn’t been any way to ask how, precisely, they meant to do it. 

“At times like this, we all must pull together,” Mrs. Patmore said. 

“I quite agree,” she said. “Mr. Fitzroy said that he and Mr. Barrow would serve.”

“Oh, he’s waiting at table again now, is he?” Mrs. Patmore asked. “I suppose even _he’d_ have a hard time standing next to poor Mr. Fitzroy and saying his shoulder’s too bad to let him do it.”

“I gather he can just about manage,” she said. “Just not in the style that Mr. Carson expects. A buffet shouldn’t give him much trouble.” Though that in itself would take a bit of managing—if Thomas got the impression they didn’t think he was up to serving a proper dinner, he was bound to take offense.

#

“I’ve always liked how you look in livery,” Thomas said, smoothing Peter’s lapels. They were back in their cottage, Thomas having just finished altering one of the spare liveries to fit Peter. 

“Me, too.” Peter preened a little in front of the mirror. 

“I think what you’re _supposed_ to say is that you like the way _I_ look in it, too,” Thomas pointed out. 

“I do,” Peter said. “But you’d look good in a _sack_ , and you know it.” 

Thomas couldn’t deny either part of that, and so he didn’t try, just quickly changed into his own livery—no alterations needed, since no one had touched it since he’d left for the war. 

Returning to the house, they went to the kitchen to find out what the menu was, so they could start figuring out the table setting and the wines. Mrs. Patmore, instead of telling them, sent Daisy to fetch Mrs. Hughes.

If they’d decided to call the drunk in again, after Thomas and Peter had gone to the trouble of getting into livery, he was going to…well, all he was _actually_ going to do was mutter under his breath about their ingratitude and lack of consideration, but it was going to be some very pointed muttering. 

Daisy returned with Mrs. Hughes in tow. “Don’t you two look smart,” Mrs. Hughes said, her eyes lingering on Peter’s empty sleeve. Thomas wondered if he ought to reassure her that, when sewing it down, he’d taken care to make sure the stitches would be easily ripped out again. 

But that probably wasn’t what she was thinking about. 

Finally tearing her eyes away from Peter’s left shoulder, she explained that Mrs. Patmore had planned a “sort of buffet. With everything that’s happening, it isn’t likely they’ll all be ready to dine at the same time, nor want to sit through courses.”

She might have thought of that a bit earlier—a buffet hardly needed both of them—but now they were both ready, they might as well go through with it. As Thomas began thinking about which serving pieces would work for a buffet, Peter said, “That seems very sensible.” To Thomas, he added, “Now you don’t have to worry about serving them from the wrong side.” 

That, Thomas had to admit, was a bit of a relief. “So what are we serving on this buffet?” he asked.

Fortunately, Mrs. Patmore wasn’t planning a large number of dishes, so they’d be able to get by with just three wines, and they were able to figure out a plan using only pieces that were already polished. Anna helped with putting out the tablecloths—one on the table, and one on the sideboard where the buffet would be arranged—and Peter decanted the wines, a job which required a steady hand, but only one. 

The buffet plan turned out to be a good one. At about the time they would normally have been changing for dinner, her ladyship took a turn for the worse, and Dr. Clarkson was summoned to the house again. 

Thomas didn’t have the chance to hear much as it was happening, because he was busy in the kitchen, reminding Mrs. Patmore that no-one being ready for dinner at dinner time was precisely the eventuality they had anticipated, and that if she had prepared anything that couldn’t be held over until they _were_ ready to eat it, she had only herself to blame. 

The latter part, Thomas was given to understand, was not what Carson would have said, but it was precisely what he would have _meant_ , so Thomas really didn’t know why Mrs. Hughes was saying his name in that way people did when they thought he was being difficult. 

Thomas and Peter had been on duty in the otherwise empty dining room for about a half an hour, keeping watch over the chafing dishes and periodically stirring things so that they wouldn’t develop a crust, when the family finally started to trickle in. Lady Edith came in first, followed by Lady Mary and Mr. Matthew. They spoke quietly, but of ordinary things, from which Thomas gathered that her ladyship's condition was alarming, but she wasn’t actively dying at that moment. 

His lordship came in quite a bit after the young ladies and Mr. Matthew, looking much more distracted. Thomas highly doubted that he particularly noticed—or cared—what he was putting onto his plate. He did, by the second time Peter filled his wine glass, pull himself together enough to notice that there was something unusual. “Fitzroy,” he said, in a steady, everything-is-normal sort of voice. “It’s good of you to lend a hand.”

Thomas remembered hearing that voice come out of his own mouth, in the days between the sinking of the _Albion_ and the telegram.

“So to speak,” Lady Mary added dryly. 

Thomas glared at her, but he didn’t think she noticed. She may, however, have noticed the reproving look that her father directed her way. 

Peter, of course, pretended not to notice any of it. He was much better at that than Thomas had ever been—and, fortunately, Thomas had warned him about the Crawleys’ eccentric habit of speaking to servants in the dining room. “Not at all, my lord,” he said smoothly. “It’s quite nostalgic, really. It’s been at least ten years since Thomas and I have waited at table together.” 

Lady Edith, perhaps trying to make up for her sister’s rudeness—or to score points with her father by way of contrast, said, “Carson will be sorry he missed it. I don’t remember when we last had two footmen in the dining room.”

Thomas did. Depending on how you looked at it, it had been either the night Lang had his breakdown in front of General Strutt, when Lang and William had, however briefly, been on duty at the same time, or the last time Thomas had waited at table before leaving for the Army. 

He didn’t say that, of course. Nor that they wouldn’t be here if Carson was. A footman only spoke when spoken to, and Thomas hadn’t been. 

The only time he did speak was when his lordship finally decided he’d spent enough time pushing his food around on his plate, and got up to leave. “My lord, are we expecting Lady Sybil to come down? Or shall I ask Mrs. Patmore to send up some sandwiches?”

His lordship looked around vaguely, as though he hadn’t quite noticed his youngest daughter’s absence. “Ah. Sandwiches, I should think. She’ll be staying with her ladyship until...for some time. Thank you for thinking of it.”

“Yes, my lord.” 

After clearing the buffet, Thomas’s next unwelcome task was to take a supper tray up to Carson. He’d perked up enough to notice that Thomas was in livery. “ _You_ served the dinner?” he demanded. 

“It was more of a supper, really,” Thomas answered, setting the tray on Carson’s lap. “We weren’t sure when, or if, they’d feel like eating, so Mrs. Patmore put together a buffet.” Carson was already rumbling, but Thomas went on, “Mr. Fitzroy and I were able to handle it, between us.”

“Mr. Fitzroy was in the dining room,” Carson said flatly. 

“His lordship mentioned how good it was of him to pitch in,” Thomas replied brightly. “Now, do you have everything you need?

After waiting a suitable—if not particularly generous—amount of time for a response, Thomas left Carson to his own devices. 

The next morning, they reported back to the house—in livery again, because why not?—with some trepidation, but Thomas could see immediately from the looks on everyone’s faces that her ladyship had not died in the night. “She’s turned the corner, Lady Sybil says,” Anna reported. “She’ll be weak for some time yet, but she should be all right.” 

The other surprise of the day was that Jane, the widowed maid, had handed in her notice. No one quite knew why. “I suppose it was difficult, being away from her son so much,” Anna speculated. “She might have found something that allows her to at live out, and see him every night.”

She also told Thomas that, with her ladyship on the mend, and Lady Mary’s promise to cover for them, she and Bates were planning to keep their appointment at the registry office the next day. Thomas began running through the list of what they’d had for Daisy and William’s even-more-hastily-arranged wedding. Anna couldn’t possibly expect him to help with her clothes and hair. Bates’s, maybe, but the man was a valet; if he couldn’t dress himself for a registry-office wedding, he was beyond helping. What else? “I’m sure Lang will round up some flowers, if you ask.” Thomas didn’t see how he’d have time to go looking for Lang today, when he was covering for Carson again, but Bates ought to be able to do that, too. 

“I’m sure he will,” Anna agreed. 

The ring was also plainly Bates’s department, so that couldn’t be what she wanted. Finally, the obvious occurred to him. “How are you getting there?”

“The bus, I suppose.” 

_Really_? They were going to take the _bus_ to their own wedding? 

That, Thomas figured, he could do something about. He didn’t get his chance until he was taking the tea-tray in to the library, and Lady Mary strolled in ahead of anyone else. “My lady,” he said, with a nod.

“Yes?”

“Anna mentioned you’re aware of her…errand in Ripon tomorrow.” 

“I am,” she said warily. “I’m not sure it’s any concern of yours.”

From the way she was acting, you’d have thought Thomas was the one who’d said something insulting the night before. For Anna’s sake, he pressed on. “I wondered about running them over there in the motor, if there’s nothing else pressing at the time. It doesn’t seem quite right for them to take the bus to their own wedding.”

She narrowed her eyes at him for a moment before saying, “No, not quite right. Why—” 

But before she could ask whatever it had been she was going to ask, his lordship came in. The moment had been lost, but she continued to direct searching looks his way, until everyone had been given tea, and Thomas was able to escape—at least until it was time to collect the tray again.

#

“Thomas will drive you and Bates into Ripon tomorrow,” Lady Mary announced, as Anna was braiding her hair for bed. 

“That’s kind,” Anna said, wondering why Thomas hadn’t mentioned this—and, since he hadn’t, whether he knew he was doing it. “We don’t mind taking the bus, really, but I suppose it will make it a bit more special.” And they’d at least have a friend as one of the witnesses—two, if Mr. Fitzroy came along. 

“He suggested it,” Lady Mary said, meeting Anna’s eyes in the mirror. “I must admit, I’m surprised. Do you suppose he’s up to something?”

Anna pretended to be dealing with a tangle in Lady Mary’s hair as she considered how to answer that. “I don’t think so, my lady. He and I are friends.”

“Are you,” Lady Mary said dubiously.

She did not actually ask, _Since when?_ , but Anna answered it anyway. “He’s improved a great deal, since the war.”

“Really,” Lady Mary said. “I thought Carson—” 

She cut the thought off abruptly, perhaps having realized that she was perilously close to _gossiping to a servant_. “Mr. Carson doesn’t approve of him and Mr. Fitzroy,” Anna explained. 

Lady Mary let out an unladylike snort. “I’ve have thought _that_ would be a positive qualification in a chauffeur, now.” 

“I expect he hasn’t thought of it quite that way,” Anna said tactfully. 

#

“It was a nice ceremony, I thought,” Peter said, as Thomas drove them back to Downton, Mr. and Mrs. Bates hand-in-hand in the back seat. “I’d never seen a registry office wedding before.”

Thomas hadn’t, either. It was all right, he supposed. Except for the part where they’d had to watch Bates kiss Anna. He could have gone his entire life without seeing that. 

“We’re married,” Anna said. “That’s the main thing. ‘The marriage is more important than the wedding,’ my mother used to say.”

Peter hmm’d in agreement. “I liked the bit with the ring. ‘A symbol of all that we have promised, and all that we share.’ A bit more romantic than I expected.” 

Thomas immediately began thinking about where he could obtain a wedding ring. _He_ didn’t need one—he had the lighter—but Peter could have one if he wanted. 

_Wearing_ it might be a different story. Even if it was on his right hand—as it would have to be, since Peter didn’t have a left one—someone was bound to notice. Something that didn’t look like a wedding ring, perhaps—though any kind of ring _other_ than a wedding band, on a man, was hopelessly vulgar. 

A normal wedding band, then, and Peter could wear it on his watch-chain. Thomas could buy it at a pawn shop; they wouldn’t ask questions about why he wanted it or why he wasn’t buying a woman’s ring to go with it. 

“—wait a bit to tell the others,” Anna was saying. “Once things have settled down, we’ll announce it, and talk to his lordship about our cottage.” 

What, then, were they planning to do about the wedding night? The men’s corridor might be sparsely populated these days, but Carson was still there; Bates couldn’t possibly smuggle Anna past him. “We could leave the garage unlocked for you, tonight.”

There was a moment of baffled silence from the back seat. “Thomas,” Bates said, warningly. 

Peter interjected hastily, “We had a…reunion there, when I first got back. It’s a bit nicer than it sounds, with the stove going, and…but perhaps our cottage would be a better choice,” he suggested. “Thomas and I can sleep in the dressing room, and—”

“ _No_ ,” Thomas and Bates both said—shouted, really—at the same moment. Thomas added an incredulous look in Peter’s direction. Did he really think Thomas was going to let _Bates_ have _marital relations_ in _their bed_? 

“That’s very kind,” Anna said tactfully. “But I think we’ll sort out that…side of things on our own.” 

“That’s probably best,” Peter agreed. 

Back at the house, they were quickly swept up into the routine of things, as if nothing of note had happened at all during their jaunt to Ripon. 

It had been exactly the same way, of course, the night that Peter had given Thomas his cigarette lighter. But, given that Anna and Bates’s declarations had irrevocable legal significance, it seemed more than a little strange for the occasion to go entirely un-remarked-upon.

That night, with her ladyship’s life no longer in danger, there was a proper dinner—or at least the best approximation of one that they could manage. Thomas would just as soon have left it to Anna and Jane to serve it, but with Jane packing to leave, and Anna in the first few hours of married life, there was no really good way to suggest it, even if Peter _hadn’t_ been enthusiastic about the prospect. 

And Peter _was_ enthusiastic. Some experimentation proved that, in addition to wine, he could do sauces—though he had to serve them from the wrong side, which was probably just as well, since Thomas would be serving everything _else_ from the right as well. 

Standing in the servery, facing down the first course, Thomas wished devoutly to be struck down by Spanish flu. A mild case, of course. 

When no conveniently-timed symptoms appeared, Thomas took a deep breath, balanced the tray in his right hand, and went in. 

At least Carson wasn’t there. And Peter was. Those were about the only two good things that could be said for the entire ghastly experience. That, and that the Dowager Countess wasn’t present—but there was no reasonable expectation that Carson would be back on his feet in the next two days, and she usually came to dine on a Sunday, so that reprieve was only temporary. 

There was a very good reason that footmen served from the diner’s left, and that was so that the diners could use their right hands to help themselves from the dishes. From the right, they either had to use their left hands, or reach awkwardly with their rights, with a rather high probability of tipping the serving spoon into their own laps. 

Lady Edith and Lady Sybil gamely experimented with helping themselves from the platters with their left hands and their rights, trying to find which was less awkward, and reaching no particular conclusion. Lady Mary, watching this, sighed loudly and said, “Could you come around to the other side?”

Thomas wished _she_ would come down with Spanish flu—and it didn’t have to be a mild case, either—but obeyed. Since he still had to hold the dish in his right hand, the only improvement this wrought was that the spoon dripped onto his sleeve, instead of her dress. 

Back in the servery, he sponged it savagely. When the time came to serve the next course, he approached Lady Mary from the right, planted his feet, and stared fixedly at a spot over her head. 

She didn’t argue with him about it, but when he repeated the performance with the pudding, she said, to no one in particular, “If there’s no one truly able to serve the dinner, why don’t we just help ourselves from the sideboard, like we did yesterday?”

It was a thought Thomas had had more than once, but Lady Sybil said, “ _Mary!_ ” in much the same way that people downstairs so often said _Thomas!_

“I’m only saying,” she began, but fell silent when his lordship sent a quelling look her way.

Thomas decided to take his victories where he could get them. 

#

Robert had, in fact, been wondering if there was a way he could suggest buffet suppers as a solution until the staff were back on their feet, without insulting Barrow’s professional pride. It had seemed unlikely to begin with, and it was certainly impossible _now_. After the girls went out, Barrow _slunk_ out of the servery with the port and a frosty air of injured dignity. Robert wished he’d be a bit less dramatic, but he couldn’t deny that Mary had been rude. 

Matthew had gone out with the girls—saying he’d play the bartender in the drawing room—so Robert said, “At times, Lady Mary doesn’t realize how things will sound before she says them. I believe that is a failing you’re acquainted with.” 

The temperature in the room dropped another few degrees. “My lord,” Thomas said flatly.

Robert had only meant to point out that Barrow had been with the household long enough for them to be acquainted with one another’s foibles, but perhaps Mary’s apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree. He could tease Bates and even Carson, but Barrow wasn’t much more inclined to take offense. 

On the whole, Robert was inclined to _let_ him be insulted, if he was that determined to be, but he had promised God that if Cora was spared, he’d be a better and more honorable man.

He’d been thinking particularly in terms of honoring his marriage vows, but being patient with Thomas Barrow seemed like the sort of sacrifice God would appreciate. He tried again. “I appreciate what you and Fitzroy are doing to keep us all going.” 

“Yes, my lord,” Barrow said flatly, as though he’d not even noticed he’d been complimented. “For the day after tomorrow, we could try coaching the hall-boys through it. I can’t say whether it’d be an improvement.” 

It took Robert a moment to realize why he was looking ahead to the day _after_ tomorrow when, after all, they’d be dining again tomorrow, as well. Yes, Mama _would_ handle the inconvenience with even less grace than Mary had. “The Dowager Countess isn’t dining with us this week,” he said, and watched Barrow almost _sag_ with relief. “Dr. Clarkson says that everyone who was here the other night must have been exposed to the flu, but it doesn’t seem a good idea to expose her again.” Mama could be challenging at times, but Robert would rather have her around to challenge him for a good while yet.

“Very good, my lord,” Barrow said. “I’ll inform Mrs. Patmore.”

Then he stood there, holding the port, the other hand behind his back. He was obviously waiting for _something_ , so Robert tried to guess what it was. “I’ll remind Lady Mary that you and Fitzroy are doing your best under trying circumstances.” 

That got him another chilly, “My lord.”

Robert gave up. He’d try telling _Carson_ that he appreciated Barrow’s pitching in during the crisis. Perhaps that would do some good.

#

They muddled through the next few days. His lordship must have meant it, about speaking to Lady Mary, because she managed to get through the dinners without any pointed sighing. She also didn’t try it on Peter, even when he—emboldened by his success with the sauces—essayed to take the side vegetable around on Sunday evening. 

So that made serving at table a little more tolerable, and experience did somewhat blur the edges of the indignity of doing everything all wrong—although he still cringed inwardly at the thought of Carson seeing, or even hearing about, the kind of performance they were putting in. 

Peter shrugged it off, saying things like, “Of course it’s not quite correct, but there’s no one else to do it,” and “I expect it’s good for their souls to be mildly inconvenienced once in a while.”

He was probably right about the latter, but _inflicting mild inconvenience_ wasn’t what being a footman was about. It was pretty much exactly the opposite. 

Reporting up to the house on Monday after breakfast, they were greeted with the news that Carson was back on duty. Thomas would have turned around and gone to the garage immediately, but Daisy was already bringing them the cups of tea and plates of toast that Mrs. Patmore had been pressing on them the last few mornings—whether because she agreed with Mrs. Hughes that men couldn’t possibly manage to keep house competently, or she thought they’d be famished from the five-minute walk from their cottage, Thomas didn’t ask. 

Thomas glanced toward the butler’s pantry, and Mrs. Hughes said, “He’s in the breakfast room already. Dr. Clarkson said he was to take it easy, but that’ll be the day.” 

Peter opened his mouth, and Thomas kicked his ankle under the table, before he could offer their continued assistance. Peter kicked him back, and said, “Thomas has plenty to do in the garage, but I’ll help if I can.”

“I’m sure that would be appreciated,” Mrs. Hughes said, with only a fraction of a moment’s hesitation. “We’re still shorthanded—Gertie’s back on her feet, as well, but Sally and Milly are still flat on their backs, and I think Harold’s coming down with it.”

They talked a bit about the tasks for the day—Peter and Mrs. Hughes talked, that is, while Thomas drank tea and ate toast. At one point, Mrs. Hughes said tactfully, “Mr. Carson is particularly eager to get back in the dining room, of course.”

“As well he should be,” O’Brien chipped in. “If there’s anything more ridiculous than a one-armed man playing the footman, I can’t imagine what it could be.”

Silence rang out. Peter very carefully set down his teacup. 

After briefly considering whether punching _O’Brien_ was worth going to prison for, and concluding it was not, Thomas suggested, “A bitter old shrew playing the devoted angel of mercy?”

No one said _Thomas!_ , and Peter even nudged Thomas’s foot with his. O’Brien made no reply, and Thomas caught her watching the bell-board out of the corner of her eye—hoping her ladyship would ring, and let her make a dignified exit. 

She still hadn’t by the time Carson came back down. Thomas stood up—everyone else did, too, but _Thomas_ was planning what the Army had called an _advance to the rear_. 

“Mr. Barrow,” Carson said. A long pause gave Thomas plenty of time to brace himself for something even worse than being reminded he wasn’t welcome in the servants’ hall. “I must give you my thanks for the way you’ve kept it all going during my indisposition.” 

It had to be a setup, but for what? Thomas considered telling him he hadn’t done it for him, but that might make whatever Carson was about to do look justified. He didn’t want to say _you’re welcome_ , though, because Carson decidedly wasn’t. 

Just when his hesitation became noticeable, Thomas suddenly thought of the perfect answer. “It was Mr. Fitzroy’s idea.”

Carson went stiff—stiffer than usual—but he actually said, almost pleasantly, “Thank you, Mr. Fitzroy.”

Mrs. Hughes spoke up. “Mr. Fitzroy has offered to help us again today, which I’m sure we’ll be very grateful for,” she said meaningfully. “Mr. Barrow has duties of his own to get back to, if we can manage without him.”

Carson gave him a very skeptical look, and Thomas said, “The motors are due for their weekly maintenance.” Overdue, in fact, but Thomas wouldn’t admit to being behind on his work in front of _Carson_ , even if it was because he’d been doing Carson’s job for him. 

“Of course,” Carson said. He looked over at Mrs. Hughes, who nodded encouragingly. “Perhaps when you’ve finished with that you’ll join us for dinner.” 

Now that _had_ to be a set-up for something. Before Thomas could begin to figure out what, though, Mrs. Hughes cleared her throat. 

“And,” Carson said. 

_And_?

“…your brother, of course.”

 _What the actual fuck_. 

“We’ve enjoyed having you around again,” Mrs. Hughes added. 

Now Thomas put it together. Carson had been moved—somehow—to rescind their banishment from the servants’ hall, and the way he’d managed to do it was to pretend he believed the line about them being brothers. In fact, after spending nearly all their waking hours up at the house for the last few days, Thomas would have rather had a quiet dinner at home with Peter, but he knew better than to spurn an olive branch. “I think we’re free,” he said, turning to Peter. 

Peter nodded. “We’d be delighted.”

#

“There,” Mrs. Hughes said, when she and Mr. Carson had retreated to his pantry. “Was that so difficult?”

Mr. Carson’s only response to that was an arch look. “I suppose if it was Mr. Fitzroy’s idea that they should lend their efforts in the crisis, there are worse influences for Thomas to have come under,” he allowed.

That, she thought, was true—though perhaps not in the way Mr. Carson intended it. “Thomas does seem happier,” she said, instead of arguing the point. “I expect it suits him, having a bit of distance from the rest of us.” Certain of them, at any rate. “But I think Mr. Fitzroy likes a bit of society now and then.”

“Hmph.” Mr. Carson shook his head. “They’d best not make a spectacle of themselves,” he warned. “And that’s all I’ll say on that subject.”

“That,” Mrs. Hughes responded in kind, “sounds like a very good idea.”

#

“You’ll be on your best behavior tonight,” Peter warned him as they walked up to the house that evening. 

“Carson had better be,” Thomas said grimly. He’d had plenty of time over the course of the day to reconsider his interpretation of Carson’s invitation. It could still be a trap of some sort. 

“Even if he isn’t, you’re going to be the bigger man,” Peter informed him.

“Like that’ll be difficult,” Thomas noted.

“Get it out of your system.”

That one, Thomas was happy to go along with. “I wonder if it actually hurt him to say ‘And…your brother’? Or maybe it gave him palpitations.” 

“Maybe,” said Peter, agreeably.

“I’d give a lot to know who twisted his arm,” Thomas added. “Mrs. Hughes is my best guess, but what do you suppose she has on him?”

“He’s in love with her,” Peter said. 

Thomas tripped over nothing. “He is not. Carson is incapable of love.”

Peter ignored that. “I’m not sure if he realizes it yet. She certainly doesn’t.”

“Don’t be disgusting,” Thomas said. “Not when we’re about to eat.” 

“I think it’s nice,” Peter objected. “I mean, they’re ancient, but it just goes to show, it’s never too late.”

“But Carson is horrible,” Thomas reminded him. 

“Maybe being in love will soften him,” Peter suggested. “It’s been known to happen.”

Ugh. Thomas changed the subject. “Have Anna and Bates told the others yet?” They hadn’t as of that morning, but Peter had been up at the house most of the day.

“No,” Peter answered. “We should invite them to dinner,” he added. “At the cottage.”

“You mean Anna and Bates, right?” The _Bates_ part of that was bad enough, but the alternative was _Carson and Mrs. Hughes_. 

Peter nodded. “Yes.”

“…I suppose.” 

Carson was, as it turned out, on his best behavior that evening. The conversation started off on the thoroughly non-controversial theme of how splendid it was that her ladyship was recovering. The only dangerous moment came when Gertie, fresh from her own sickbed, said, “Now that her ladyship is better, have they set a date for the wedding?”

Everyone suddenly found interesting things to look at in the corners or near the ceiling, as Carson huffed like a steam engine. At some length, Mrs. Hughes rescued the moment by saying, “I don’t believe Lady Mary and Mr. Matthew have thought much about the wedding while she was so ill.”

Gertie, fortunately, caught on, and both she and Carson pretended that theirs was the wedding she had been speaking of all along. 

After that, the talk moved to the subject of Spanish flu more generally. The village had only a few dozen cases so far—light compared to some places. This, too, everyone readily agreed was good. 

When the meal was over, Peter pulled Anna and Bates aside, and invited them to the cottage the next night. “We usually eat a bit earlier than they do in the servants’ hall,” he explained. “You can come over after you’ve finished dressing them for dinner, and you’ll be back well before they go up.”

Thomas hadn’t quite realized that Peter meant to invite them _immediately_ , but when Anna said, “That would be lovely,” he couldn’t really object. 

Not in front of her, anyway. He saved it for when they were walking back to the cottage. “Do we have to have them tomorrow? We’ve barely had any time to ourselves lately.”

“I thought they could use a night off from having to pretend they’re not a couple,” Peter explained. “We know what that’s like.”

True enough. “They’ll eventually get to _stop_ ,” Thomas pointed out. 

Peter gave him a _look_. “ _We_ don’t have to pretend, either, while we’re entertaining them.”

Huh. No, they wouldn’t have to, would they?

If Bates did anything disgusting, like kissing Anna again, he could see how he liked watching _them_ at it. 

The next morning, however, brought a sudden change in their plans. Thomas was leaning against the garage doorframe, smoking a cigarette and keeping an eye out for Peter, who usually brought him a cup of tea at about this time, when an unfamiliar black car coming up the drive. If it belonged to guests of the family, it would be his job to tell their chauffeur where to park it—or, if they’d driven themselves, as was increasingly common, to park it himself. 

Thomas straightened up and watched as it took the turning that led the kitchen courtyard—definitely _not_ where visiting chauffeurs were supposed to park. Delivery drivers did, but the car didn’t look like any tradesman’s van that Thomas had ever seen. He started over, trying to quickly finish his cigarette as he went—if it was anything _other_ than a confused visiting chauffeur, he’d best not greet them with a cigarette in his hand. 

He caught up to the motorcar as two men in not-very-good suits were getting out of it.

 _Bloody buggering fuck_. For a man like Thomas, being able to spot a rozzer at twenty paces was a vital survival skill. His first thought—of course—was that they were here for him and Peter, and he automatically moved into the cover of the courtyard wall, calculating escape routes. He’d got as far as realizing there was no way to warn Peter in time when it suddenly occurred to him that they might not be—probably weren’t, in fact—after them at all. 

He took up a position where he had a good view of the kitchen door, but wouldn’t be easily seen. The taller of the two men knocked, and a moment or two later a hall-boy answered the door. The policemen help up their warrant cards and spoke for a moment. The hall boy spoke back, then closed the door. 

Carson appeared a moment later. The policemen again displayed their identification, and spoke to Carson at greater length than they had to the hall-boy. At one point, Carson appeared to protest—as he would hardly have been likely to do if they _had_ been there for Thomas and Peter. 

Still, when Carson at last admitted them into the house—instead of pointing an accusing finger in the direction of the garage and chauffeur’s cottage—Thomas let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. 

Not them. 

Bates. 

_Anna_. 

Thomas hesitated. Peter would be a lot better for this sort of thing, but even though he was _almost nearly completely sure_ , Thomas wouldn’t bring Peter right into the reach of police. Squaring his shoulders, and wishing he had time for another cigarette, he headed for the house.

He got there just in time to see Bates being marched down the passage from the servants’ hall. It seemed the entire staff was there, lining the walls and lingering in doorways, watching it happen.

Thomas thought of marching his work detail past Rouse, tied to a post, and kept his eyes front. 

Once Bates and the two policemen had passed him, he saw Anna, standing framed by the servants’ hall doorway, with the light behind her. 

He thought of a messenger boy, standing in the kitchen doorway, with the light behind him, bringing a telegram that would shatter the world into pieces. 

He thought of Anna saying, _I don’t mean to rub it in, that we’re going to be happy and Mr. Fitzroy will always be dead._

There was no pleasure in the reversal of fortune. Or at least not in the second half of it. 

A blink, and Thomas found himself at Anna’s side, watching as her lower lip trembled. They were the only ones in the servants’ hall—everyone else having had the sense to hang back. Why hadn’t he? 

There wasn’t any scheme, no bit of blackmail or bribery or cleverness, that would make this any better. They couldn’t run for the car and take off in hot pursuit of Bates’s abductors—well, they _could_ , but it wouldn’t accomplish anything, except maybe getting both of them sacked. They couldn’t go to the police and present some well-constructed story that would explain away everything. They couldn’t find the policemen’s weak spot and exploit it, because they had the whole legal system behind them; even if the two men they had just seen could be gotten out of the way, someone else would step into their shoes. There was just…nothing.

Slowly, Thomas reached out and squeezed Anna’s arm. 

Now he understood why she was always doing that. What it meant.

 _There’s nothing I can do to help_. It meant, and also, _But if there were, I’d do it_.


	35. Epilogue:  Summer, 1919

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new arrival at the Barrow-Fitzroy household.

“The trick to pastry is not to over-work it,” Mrs. Patmore was saying. “That makes it tough. Just mix in the water until it’ll come together in a ball, and then turn it—” She looked toward the kitchen door, behind Peter. “What do you want?”

He turned and saw Harold, the hall-boy. “There’s a man here looking for Mr. Barrow,” Harold reported. “I thought Mr. Fitzroy would know where he is.”

Peter wiped his floury hand on a dishtowel and untied his apron. Thomas might be back from taking her ladyship to Ripon, or he might not, but either way, Peter thought he’d find out who this man was and what he wanted, before giving out any information on the subject. “Where is he?”

“Outside,” Harold said. “He didn’t want to come in.”

“I’ll take it from here,” Peter told him.

The man was tall, gawky, and sort of gormless looking—not a likely sort of friend for Thomas, but he didn’t look dangerous, either. There was a covered basket by his feet, the lid tied shut with a frayed bit of twine.

“I’m Mr. Barrow’s brother,” Peter said. 

“Oh,” the man said. He appeared to think for a moment. “He didn’t die, did he? Rawlins said he was alive.”

A war chum, then. Peter didn’t actually know the names of any of them other than Rawlins, but he said, “He is. I’m Peter.”

“Simon.” He looked down at the basket, which had begun to…wobble, slightly.

“Is that,” Peter began. 

He’d been about to say _alive_ , but Simon assumed greater knowledge than Peter, in fact, had. He nodded enthusiastically. “I brought him back to England in my rucksack. I had to give him a little piece of a morphine tablet to get him in there, and then he slept through the whole crossing.” 

“Ah,” Peter said, beginning to get an inkling of what—or whom—the basket might contain. They couldn’t be fresh off the Channel crossing—Simon was dressed in civilian clothes, and the cat was no longer in a rucksack—and as Peter started toward the garage, Simon supplied the rest of the story.

“Only he and my Nan’s cat don’t get along,” he explained. “So Nan says he can’t stay. And he likes Barrow best of anyone. Better than me, really.” The basket gave a lurch, and Simon paused to adjust his grip on it. “Rawlins told me how to find this place.” 

“I see.” Peter eyed the basket. 

“It sure is big,” Simon added, looking back over his shoulder at the house. 

Peter was about to tell him that their cottage was much smaller, when the twine holding the basket shut gave way.

#

Thomas was under the bonnet of the landaulet, removing its spark plugs, when a substantial weight landed on his shoulder. 

A large, _noisy_ weight. It was heavier than he remembered, but the purrs and trills it made were familiar. Carefully straightening up, Thomas turned his head and found himself face-to-face with What’s-his-name, the cat. He trilled again, and rubbed his jaw against Thomas’s. “What the bloody hell are you doing here?”

The cat responded by stamping his front paws on Thomas’s neck. 

There were really only a couple of possible explanations for this, and Thomas headed out of the garage to find out which of them was responsible.

#

“ _Plank!_ ” 

At Thomas’s bellow, Simon gulped and reached for his shirt-collar, which was unbuttoned. “Corp?” he said. 

“Sarge, actually,” Thomas answered. He was standing in front of the garage, with an absolutely _enormous_ ginger cat on his shoulder. 

It had been a great deal smaller, in the picture Peter had seen of it doing the same thing. 

“Explain,” Thomas suggested. 

Simon—or Plank—repeated what he’d told Peter about the rucksack and the morphine tablet and his Nan’s cat. “So I thought….”

“You thought you’d bring the world’s most spoiled cat here to eat us out of house and home,” Thomas finished for him. 

“He likes you best,” Simon pointed out. 

Thomas turned his head to look at the cat, who responded by shoving his head against Thomas’s. 

“Well,” Peter said, realizing that they had just become a three-person—or three-being, anyway—household. “We won’t have to worry about mice.”

Thomas scoffed. “You think this cat catches mice? All he does is wait for sardines to fall into his mouth.”

The cat trilled in answer. 

“I’ll put the kettle on,” Peter decided. 

“Better see if we still have that tin of sardines, too,” Thomas said. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all, folks! If you want to hear about future writing projects, I'm on Tumblr at https://alex51324.tumblr.com/ . I don't post much, but if there's anything new and exciting happening, I'll probably mention it there.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Corporal T. Barrow, RAMC and the Cat with Many Names](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22845769) by [allonym](https://archiveofourown.org/users/allonym/pseuds/allonym)
  * [Cover for "Soldier's Heart" by Alex51324](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22996858) by [Amiril](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amiril/pseuds/Amiril)




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